End Fantasy
by GuyYouMetOnline
Summary: Gensokyo is under threat from strange, misshapen creatures that mindlessly attack whatever they see. While Sanae Kochiya attempts to prepare the people of Gensokyo for the coming threat, a young magician youkai stumbles onto a discovery which leads her to the secret truth behind the danger, a truth that could change everything. *ON HIATUS*
1. Prologue

(Note: all BGM links are to YouTube, but this site auto-removes complete URLs. So you'll have to type in everything up to 'com', then paste what I provide after 'com')

* * *

[BGM = /watch?v=g7ZZ4mnuwf0]

 _It was inevitable, I suppose. Even if we didn't know it. And I suppose it was also inevitable that we didn't see it coming. After all, almost nobody knew the truth. And now that I know it, I understand why it has been kept from people. Knowing what I now know... it changes you. You cannot learn this truth and walk away unchanged. And it's not a pleasant thing to know, either. But... it had to be learned. Because there was a danger, a threat to all of us. There was one, only one, who say this danger coming, but even she did not realize the truth behind it. Even so, we owe her much, as the rest of us had no idea the danger was coming._

The young magician youkai Liri focused, feeling the essence of the staff she held in her hands, and commanded it to change. She added to it the essence of flame, and felt the heat radiating from it. She touched it to the ground, to a patch of grass. The grass caught fire, and she pulled her staff away and again commanded its essence to change. She removed fire and added water. She pressed it against the burning grass, extinguishing the flames.

 _We were all simply going about our lives, unaware of the coming danger. Sure, there had always been periodic incidents, and some, such as the endless winter, had been potentially very dangerous. But others-the flying ship, for example-were harmless, and even the dangerous ones were resolved before they could cause any real harm. So we became used to this, used to the idea that we didn't have to worry._

Keine Kamishirasawa looked out the window as she heard a familiar _crash_ outside. _I really wish she'd just land normally._ But she was glad to hear it, because it meant that Tenshi Hinanawi had arrived. Theirs was, perhaps, an unlikely romance, but Keine didn't care. She opened the door of her house and greeted Tenshi with passion. Maybe there were people who disapproved of their relationship, and maybe not. Keine and Tenshi loved each other, and to them, that was all that mattered.

 _We all got used to things as they were. We weren't ready for what came; it caught us by surprise. All of us. The fairies, too childish in mind to worry even if they had realized they should._

"Too slow!" Cirno called out as she dodged around Daiyousei and flew off... only for Daiyousei to pop up in front of her and tag her before she could react. "Gah!"

"Tag! You're it!"

"Not for long!" Cirno lunged at Daiyousei, but her target wasn't there, having vanished and reappeared about twenty feet away. "Dammit!"

Daiyousei laughed. "You always forget I can do that."

"It doesn't matter. You're mine, Dai!"

"Then catch me if you can!" Dai flew off with Cirno in pursuit.

 _The youkai of the forests and the plains, of the woods and the meadows._

It used to be that youkai often ate humans. These days, there were strict rules about that. Not that it mattered to Akora. The eagle youkai didn't have any interest in eating people. Not that she necessarily wouldn't; she was, after all, a predator, and predators couldn't always be picky in regards to their prey. But a situation where such a thing was necessary had yet to arise; Gensokyo was filled with all kinds of wildlife, and the predators had more than enough prey. Akora's current target was a young deer separated from its herd, and she swooped down on it without warning, killing it quickly. It was a good kill; she would eat well today.

 _The magicians in the Forest of Magic._

Alice completed her latest set of runes and energized them. She felt the power flowing through them, through them and into the doll at their center, but once again, the doll was unchanged. She'd been trying to give Shanghai life for decades now without success, but this didn't lessen her resolve. She knew she'd succeed eventually. Maybe it would take decades more, maybe centuries, but someday, eventually, she would succeed.

 _The humans, the 'youkai hunters' who target those youkai less willing to follow the rules._

The man moved forward carefully, well aware he was being stalked. Eventually, the youkai attacked, and despite his quick reaction, it quickly caught and overpowered him. But he wasn't alone, and his companion was an expert at stealth. The youkai had never noticed her, and her arrow struck it in the neck. Which didn't really harm the youkai, but it did distract the youkai for an instant, and the man had known it was coming. And he took his dagger and plunged it into the youkai's chest. Then an enchanted arrow struck it and delivered a blast of energy, and then the man stabbed the youkai again, and then a third and a fourth time, and it fell to the ground.

"Good work, Elise," the man said to his companion.

"Not a problem. The two of us are more than enough to handle a weaker youkai like this."

"Indeed, but you still did well. All right, come on. Let's get back to the village."

 _We all just lived our lives as normal. We didn't recognize the coming danger, and even the one among us who did see it coming didn't understand its significance, what it truly meant. But she would learn, as would I and others. We would learn far more than we ever cared to, and we were not prepared for it. I don't think anyone could be prepared for such a truth._

The sensation came again, and Rumia put her hand up to the ribbon in her hair. She knew what it meant, that brief pulse of energy, the flash . She knew what would soon happen to her. She didn't want it, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it. But it wasn't time quite yet, as she was reminded when her hand touched the ribbon and it pulsed again, giving her a clear message even without using words: _Not yet_. But soon.

Rumia knew it was coming. She only hoped that, once it was over, she would be able to return to who she was now.

 _Looking back, I can see the danger that had been ahead of us, see what was coming, but then, I now know the truth. Most do not, and they would not see what I see. Were they to look back on the past, they would think they knew what was coming, but they would be wrong. They would think they'd identified the enemy, but they would not have. To them, to those who think they know what threat we faced, to those who already think they know who the enemy was, I can say this:_

 _You are wrong._

 _ **End Fantasy**_


	2. Chapter 1: Sighting

**Chapter 1  
** _Sighting_

"It's hard, sometimes," Liri said. "I mean, I'm fine with the way my life is, but..."

"You feel like something's missing."

"...Yeah."

She'd been considering it for a while, and now, Liri Takoru had finally paid a visit to the Myouren Temple. She knew several youkai who'd found help there, and now she herself was the one seeking their aid. And she'd been lucky; rather than speaking to just any of the temple's residents, Liri had been approached by Byakuren Hijiri herself, and the human-turned-youkai had quickly zeroed in on Liri's anxieties.

"It used to be," Byakuren said, "that a youkai was born with a purpose. Something brought a youkai into being, and that something was the reason a youkai was alive. Not all youkai were like this, of course. The distinct youkai races such as the oni and the kappa, for example, or youkai born from animals. But for others, yes, they were born each with her own purpose. But that was before Gensokyo was separated into its own land. Today, youkai can still be born in that way, but the sense of purpose that once came with it is no more. Do you know why?"

"...No, but if it changed after the separation, I'd assume that had something to do with it."

"And you would be correct. In the outside world, youkai were often shaped by humans' perception of them. Here, in Gensokyo, that is not the case. Youkai, like humans, are free to shape themselves. But while humans have always been that way, youkai have not. This, Liri, is why you feel like something's missing. Something within you expects a sense of purpose to be present. You feel like something's missing because something-that sense of purpose- _is_ missing.

"There are two ways to deal with what you're feeling. One is to simply ignore this feeling. Just live your life as you have been, paying it no heed, and eventually you will cease to notice it. It will no longer bother you. This may sound simple, and for some it is, but for others it can be very difficult. If you choose this path, know that you can at any time come to us for aid. This also holds true for the other path; however, there is less we can do for you if you choose it. That second path to overcoming the absence of a sense of purpose is to find it. Find a purpose for yourself. That, Liri, is the option I chose.

"You may be thinking-many do-that I don't understand what this is like for you because I was born as a human. But I do understand, because no human is born with that sense of purpose. A human who desires a purpose must find one. This has been true for them since the beginning. And yes, many humans simply live their lives without a purpose, and some of those who try to find a purpose never succeed. But others do find their purposes, as I have found mine. Perhaps they find it by searching hard enough, or perhaps, like me, they more stumble upon it. Either way works.

"Those are your options, Liri. Either find a purpose, or learn to live without one. Both are equally valid options. I can't tell you which choice to make; that is up to you. What I _can_ do is to give you an idea of the difficulties each choice carries with it, and to help you overcome those of whichever choice you do make. But which choice you make is up to you. Do you understand?"

"I... yes," Liri said.

"Good. I have other duties I must attend to, but feel free to stay as long as you like, and to return at any time. I or one of my companions here can answer any questions you might have, or give you information you may want. And when you do make your choice, we will do everything we can to help you on your path."

* * *

Tilea lay on the ground, idly forming balls of dirt and tossing them into each other. _Where is she, anyways? She's usually here right now, isn't she?_

Tilea heard someone approach and quickly leapt to her feet, shaking the dirt off her wings as she turned to face the new arrival. "There you are, Liri! Where've you be-wait, you're not Liri."

"What?" The newcomer said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. "I'm not? Are you sure?"

"...Shut up, 'Kara."

Enkara Oshiniri just laughed. "Actually, I thought Liri'd be here," she then said, "but I take it she's not."

"I'm looking for her, too," Tilea said. "I found something I wanna show her. Hey, you should come, too!"

"Well, maybe. I was just in the area and thought I'd come say 'hi'. Wasn't planning on sticking around for too long. 'Course, I wasn't planning anything else, either. Well, 'cept drinking."

"Yeah, you and your sake. I don't get how you oni stand that stuff. I think it's gross."

"Eh, your loss. Anyways, what did you find? If it sounds interesting, maybe I will go with you."

"It's a-wait, no! I'm not telling! You'll have to come along if you want to know!"

"...Fine. But only if Liri's here soon; I'm not waiting around here all day."

* * *

Keine looked out the window, at the small group making its way through the village, and sighed. _The triumphant hunters return._

"What's up?"

Keine turned her attention to the other in the room. "It's just... well, it's the hunters. I... I just wish people wouldn't think such a thing was necessary."

"Well, let's be fair. Some youkai _are_ a danger to humans."

"I know, Tenshi. But this is beyond that. These people are afraid not of individuals but of youkai as a whole."

Class had ended for the day, and Keine was tidying up the schoolhouse prior to her own departure, a task that had gone much quicker once Tenshi'd shown up, and they were now just about finished.

"Yeah," Tenshi said. "I'm just glad that doesn't include Celestials. It's bad enough that you have to hide what you are; I'd hate for you to be alone on top of that."

Tenshi was one of only a few who knew that Keine was half-youkai. Keine'd always hidden this fact. She'd feared the villagers would turn on her, that she'd be forced out of her home, and as much as Tenshi hated it, she knew that Keine was probably right. Tensions between humans and youkai were historically very high, and the idea of a half-youkai in their midst wouldn't have sat well with many of the villagers. And although relations had actually been improving for a while, especially during Reimu's time as the Hakurei maiden, tensions were once again on the rise. So Keine still had to hide her true nature.

"Indeed," Keine said. "I'm glad I have you, Tenshi."

"I know. Right, well, it looks like we're done. Let's get out of here."

"Yeah," Keine said, and sighed again. Such people were still a minority, fortunately, though a growing one. But... _One day they'll see that youkai aren't always their enemies. One day they'll understand._

 _I hope._

* * *

Liri did have a few questions, mostly about what sort of things the temple did with some about the people there, especially Byakuren herself. But before long, she was satisfied, and left, heading for the Forest of Magic.

Liri soon entered the forest and made her way to a clearing she knew well. _Might as well get some practice in._ But as she neared the clearing, she noticed that two others were already there. Two people she knew quite well.

Most oni rarely, if ever, ventured to the surface, but Enkara spent almost as much time above ground as below. Why she was here now Liri didn't know, but it wouldn't be unlike her at all to stop by just because. And she knew this clearing was Liri's favorite spot to work. The earth fairy Tilea, seated next to Enkara, knew so as well, although she didn't really understand. Fairies were almost uniformly childish, and generally had no real understanding of work or responsibility or anything of the like. Some might find it odd that Liri, a magician who put a lot of effort into her studies of magic, would be friends with such a person, but she was. It helped that Tilea was unusually smart for a fairy, but mostly it was because anyone could use some relaxation every now and then, and it was hard not to relax a bit when someone like Tilea was around.

"About time you showed up, Liri!" Tilea said as the magician landed. "We've been waiting, like, forever!"

"I've only been waiting about five minutes," Enkara said. "Still, I'm surprised you weren't here already. Where were you?"

"I paid a visit to the Myouren Temple," Liri said.

"Ah, finally checked that place out? What'd you think?"

"They were certainly welcoming, and seemed to know what they were talking about. I may well ask their aid after all."

"I don't get what the big deal is," Tilea said. "Why d'ya need a 'purpose' anyways?"

"I don't, actually, but part of me _feels_ like I do. That's the problem, actually. A youkai doesn't need a purpose in this world, but that sense that there _should_ be one remains."

"...Huh?"

Enkara chuckled. "Don't worry about it, Til."

"'Kay. Now come on, you two! I found something interesting!"

"And what would that be?" Liri asked.

"Nuh-uh, I'm not falling for that! You'll have to come with me if you want to see it!"

"Well..." _Oh, what the hell. I could probably stand to unwind a bit._ "All right, sure. Where is it?"

"In the woods by the lake. It's this way! Follow me!"

"Lead on, then," Enkara said, and the three of them took to the air.

* * *

"So what exactly does this thing do?"

Nitori briefly turned her attention from the device she was setting up to the kappa standing beside her. "I told you, Liora, it's a large-scale optical camouflage system." The device was one part of a larger system, positioned at the center. In a circle around it were three rings of smaller devices. Another object, a power supply connected to the entire system, was positioned at the edge of the circle, and a control panel was positioned about ten feet beyond the circle.

Liora just sighed. "I know _that_ , Nitori. But what does it actually _do_? Optical camouflage doesn't work on anything very big, so how is all this stuff supposed to change that? All you told me is that you need a lot of camera pods and the high-end projectors."

"Optical camouflage is perfectly capable of working on a large scale if it has enough power. You know that. The problem is that the effect is much more noticeable."

"I think you just won the understatement championships," Liora said. Optical camouflage, which removed its user from sight, worked by taking the space directly behind the user and projecting its image directly in front of the user, making it look as though the space occupied by the user wasn't even there. This was mostly very effective; it did create a minor visual distortion, but one that was very hard to see on a smaller scale, especially if one didn't know it was there. Try to camouflage something like a village that way, though, and the distortion was impossible to miss.

"Well," Nitori said, "that's because you're looking at one side of the area and seeing what's supposed to be on the other side. When that's done over a big area, it's hard to miss. So instead of projecting what's on the other side of the area, what you need to do is project what the area would look like if whatever you're concealing wasn't there."

"Which is easier said than done. Take our village, for example. You think you can just remove the village part? That doesn't work. I mean, for one thing, if the village wasn't there, the entire area would be home to every bit as much plant life as the area around it."

"Well, yeah. That's what all this equipment is for. And why I had to involve you in the test; you may not be as smart as I am in general, but you're much better than me when it comes to optics."

"...Thanks. I think. And yes, I'm aware that you think this setup can solve that problem, but what does it all do? Let's start with the camera pods. Why so many?"

"Well, you'd need only one ring of pods the old way, to record what's there for projection to the other side. And you don't even need camera pods for something small like a person, of course, just a basic short-range optical recorder. Anyways, my setup has two rings, one facing outward and one facing inward. The system needs to be able to see the entirety of the area it's going to conceal. At full size, with something like our village, it'd need pods throughout the area, too, to complete its sight, but this is just the initial prototype. Once I've perfected the system, I'll scale it up."

"I'll be impressed if it works even at this scale," Liora said. And it would be impressive. Currently, optical camouflage couldn't effectively conceal anything all that much larger than a person, but Nitori's system was enclosing a circular area twenty feet in diameter. "But, okay, you're covering the whole area with the camera pods. Then what?"

Nitori finished with the central device and got to her feet. "That's where this thing comes in. It takes the feed from the pods and extrapolates to figure out what the area would look like without anything in it. Enka helped me with that part."

"Yeah, that sounds like it'd be in her area of expertise. Although I bet even she had a hard time with it."

"Yeah, but she did it."

"Then why isn't she the one out here with you?"

"Because we've already tested her part," Nitori said. "The extrapolation system works perfectly, but she doesn't know crap outside of her area of expertise. This test is about the hardware and the overall system; she'd be useless here, but I do need you for the cameras and projectors."

"...Right. So, then, I'm assuming that this extrapolation is what's given to the projectors. And the reason you needed my projectors specifically."

"That's right. Yours are the best, and the only ones that can project the needed level of image depth and detail in a fine-enough resolution. Okay, you got all the rings set up?"

"They're in position," Liora said, "and the connections on their end are good."

"Central system's end is ready, too," Nitori said. "Okay, let's do this." She walked over to the power supply. "All right, generator looks good.." She then exited the circle, heading over to the control panel. "Okay, beginning startup. Make sure you stay in the center there."

"...Why? And why do you have the control panel all the way over there?"

"In case something explodes, obviously. That's why the central system is in the middle of the circle, too, while the generator is on the edge. This takes a lot of power, and it's the first test of the full system. Do you really think something's _not_ going to blow? Hell, if I didn't think anything would go wrong, I've jumped straight to full scale."

"And _I'm_ here in the middle while _you're_ safe over there."

"There won't be any big blows; generator doesn't produce enough energy for that. Don't worry; you're safe."

"That's not very reassur-" Liora's response was cut off as the control panel blew, knocking Nitori to the ground. "-never mind, I'm fine here."

The control panel wasn't the only thing that blew. One of the camera pods was nothing more than junk now, and the same was true of the projector next to it. But the failsafes kicked in quickly enough to prevent any additional damage, and shut the system down.

Nitori was silent for a minute, and when she did speak, it was only a single word. "...Huh."

"I'm gonna go _waaaaaaaaaay_ out on a limb here and assume that wasn't supposed to happen," Liora said.

"No, I expected that. Didn't think the _control panel_ would blow, though." Nitori went back to the circle and started examining the connections as she muttered to herself. "Gotta be a fault in the routing circuit somewhere, something that put more power in my direction than it was supposed to. Hmm..."

"...Right," Liora said. "I'm heading back to the village to get some extra pods and projectors." But there was no response from Nitori. _Typical. She barely notices anything else at all when she's in this mode. Right, well, whatever._ "Be right back." _And you're lucky the shrine is backing this, or else I wouldn't be so generous with them._

Liora took off for the village, leaving Nitori tinkering with her devices.

* * *

"See?" Tilea said as she and the other two landed in the woods near the Misty Lake.

"...It's a cave in the woods," Enkara said. "What's so interesting about that?"

"It wasn't here yesterday, that's what."

"...Oh. Yeah, that's not normal."

"I wouldn't say it's all that hard to explain, though," Liri said. "I could easily make a cave like this in that time. The magic wouldn't be all that difficult."

"Can't you two sense it?" Tilea said. "There's something really weird in there."

"Hmm..." Liri focused, extending her senses towards the cave. And then she jerked back in shock. "What... what _is_ that?"

"How should I know? I can't get in."

"I see." Liri walked up to the entrance. "Yes, there's a seal here. It's really weak, though. I couldn't even sense it until getting right next to it here, although I think that's partially because whatever's inside has a stronger presence that's overcoming the seal's."

"Can you get rid of it?"

"Easily. In fact, with one this weak, I'm surprised you couldn't do it."

"I don't know how to break a seal," Tilea said.

"One this weak, all it would take is a slight burst of power. Clearly you didn't even try."

"Hold up," Enkara said. "I'm not normally the voice of caution, but shouldn't we, you know, _not_ break in? Someone made this deliberately, that much is obvious. Maybe we shouldn't force our way in."

"Ordinarily I'd agree," Liri said, "but there's only one way a seal this weak could possibly exist. Even the weakest of seals anyone can place is stronger than this one. The only way a seal could be this weak is a combination of age and lack of attention. Even the strongest of seals decays over time if it's not maintained. I don't know why this place wasn't here until today, but it-or the seal, at least-has been abandoned for quite some time."

"I guess that makes sense. We going in, then?"

Tilea walked up to the entrance. She pushed against it with her power, and there was a sort of shimmering effect that solidified into... well, into something, something like a thin sheet of clear glass, which then shattered. "Huh. Guess you were right, Liri. All right, come on! Let's go in!"

"Let's be cautious," Liri said. "Stay with me, Tilea, and don't do anything, or even just _touch_ anything, I don't tell you to. And that goes for you, too, Enkara. We don't know what's in there, but it's certainly a magic object of some kind, or else we wouldn't be able to sense it. I know how to safely handle unknown magic objects; you don't. So follow instructions exactly, all right?"

"Fine," Tilea said.

"Okay, then," Enkara said. "I guess you're in the lead, then, Li. So, well, lead the way."

* * *

Akora saw the other youkai approaching and flew down to meet her. This particular youkai, after all, was one she knew. It had been Liri, another acquaintance of hers, who'd introduced her to the plant youkai Alraune.

Akora and Alraune provided a significant contrast. Akora was every bit as large as one would expect from a youkai born of an eagle, and was also every bit as fast and strong. She did have some degree of power over the wind, an ability common among avian youkai, but it was fairly limited; her strength was almost all physical.

Alraune was different. She wasn't small by any means; although she did look small next to Akora, this was true for most. And while Akora appeared every bit the hunter she was, Alraune was much less of an intimidating physical presence. But this didn't mean she wasn't capable; her physical strength may not have been a match for Akora's, but she had a much greater level of power. She wielded control over plants, and over the years had developed this ability to a significant degree. Despite Akora's physical strength, Alraune was easily the more dangerous of the two in a fight.

Clothing provided another contrast between the two. Akora's outfit was very simple, and almost always with at least some tears in it. She didn't particularly care how she looked; her only concern was practicality. Alraune, on the other hand, preferred a much more complicated outfit that seemed to be made entirely from plants. Her skirt was composed entirely of leaves of various colors, and her top piece was an intricately-woven pattern of vines, leaves, and flower petals. She wasn't worried about damage to it, though; it being made from plant materials meant that she could easily repair it.

Akora didn't spend any time on pleasantries. "Alraune. Why are you here?"

"Well, 'hi' to you, too," Alraune said with a chuckle. "What, I can't just stop by because I feel like it?"

"If you did, then that would be the answer to my question."

"...I suppose that's true. I do have a specific reason for stopping by today, though."

"And what would that reason be?"

"Well, it seems Tilea's roped Liri and Enkara into another of her 'adventures', but there's a chance this one actually has something to it. Some cave just showed up overnight, with some kind of magic object inside."

"They are not here, though," Akora said. "If they told you of this, then where are they?"

"They didn't come to tell me about anything."

"Then how do you know of this?"

"Tilea's flower ornament. You _do_ remember that, right? The one she always wears in her hair? The one I made for her? The one I, um, 'modified' such that I can extend my senses through it?"

"I do not know that you have mentioned such a thing before."

"I have. You probably just didn't care about it enough to bother remembering it. Anyways, that's how I know what they're doing. I'm going to go join them, and I thought I'd bring you, too."

"I have no interest in such things."

Alraune sighed. "Akora, I know you haven't been a youkai for all that long, but you really should have figured out by now that there's more to the life of a youkai than the life of an animal. There's no need for you to be so serious all the time."

"There is little else I have any interest in."

"Well, I don't care. I say you're coming with me, so you're coming with me."

"I have no desire to accompany you."

"Good for you," Alraune said. "Now come on, let's get- oh, shit! Come on, we have to go!"

Akora wasn't used to Alraune sounding so urgent. "Why? What is it?"

"They're in danger!"

"Who is in danger?"

"Tilea's group, obviously. Now come _on_ already! Let's go!"

* * *

Liri, Tilea, and Enkara emerged from the smaller passageway into a larger cavern. "Okay," Tilea said, "that ceiling is _way_ higher up than the cave was on the outside, and we've only gone down a little bit. No way are we that far underground."

"Indeed," Liri said. "This cavern would seem to be magically enlarged."

"Yeah, but it looks like a dead end," Enkara said. "I don't see any other paths, so whatever object we're looking for has to be in here, right? I do see something on the far wall, some design of some sort or something, and then there's that big complicated symbol on the ground. They're obviously important, but I don't know how. I'd say that's your field, Li."

The symbol on the ground began to glow. "It's reacting to our presence," Liri said.

The symbol flashed, and a creature appeared seemingly from nowhere in the middle of it. It was a very distinctive creature, with two heads resembling a lion and a goat respectively and a tail that seemed to be a snake. "That doesn't look normal," Enkara said.

[BGM = /watch?v=K6KqB3DPhG0]

"A Greek chimera?" Liri said. "How did that get here?"

"You know what this thing is?"

"Only that it's a creature out of outside-world mythology."

"But why's it here?" Tilea asked. "And how'd it just appear like that?"

"That looked like no summoning I know of," Liri said, "but that has to be what it was. This creature was called here to defend this place from intruders."

"Um... maybe we should leave, then?"

The creature charged. "Too late for that!" Enkara shouted as she met its charge. The lion head opened its mouth to bite down, but Enkara redirected her charge into the goat head, slamming into it and knocking the chimera back. The creature's tail responded by spitting out globules of some green substance, which Enkara evaded.

"Don't let that substance touch you!" Liri called out. "It's probably extremely toxic!" She turned towards Tilea. "Til, drop a chunk of the ceiling on it."

"I'm trying," Tilea said, "but the earth here's all weird-feeling and it's hard to get a grip on it!"

"Keep trying," Liri said. She called to her staff, which promptly appeared in her waiting hand. She placed her other hand on the jewel at the top of the staff and prompted it magically, and the top of the staff changed, shifted into a blade. Her weapon ready, she ran at the creature.

The creature lunged at Enkara, who dodged to the side, but then the snake was there, striking at her. She barely managed to duck under its bite, then spun around and kicked the chimera in the side of the lion head. The chimera jumped back and quickly lunged forward again, this time slashing with its claws. Enkara leapt around the attack and tried to land a blow of her own, but the snake was spitting more of its gunk, forcing here to back off and evade.

Liri felt her weapon's essence and _shifted_ it, adding to it the essence of flame. As the chimera lunged at Enkara again, Liri struck from the side, slashing down its flank as the essence of fire scorched its hide around the wound. The snake head tried to bite her, but she ducked under the strike. She slashed at the snake, but it pulled back quickly, denying her a hit.

The chimera jumped back, facing its assailants, and both heads opened their mouths, spewing forth energy blasts, fiery blasts from the lion head and spheres of electrical magic from the goat head. "Shit!" Enkara said as she and Liri leaped in opposite directions. "I guess this thing still had a trick or two up its sleve."

"We don't know what it can do," Liri said, "so be careful."

The chimera advanced toward Liri, only to come to a sudden stop as a large chunk of stone hit the ground in front of it, breaking into pieces upon contact. "Crap, I missed!"

"You were close, Tilea," Liri said. "Keep trying. Enkara! Flank it!"

Liri fired a blast of her own magic, but the chimera barely seemed to notice the hit. _Da_ _mn. I guess physical strikes work best here._ The creature belched out more magic blasts, which Liri was able to evade, but then the snake began spewing its toxic... whatever the stuff was randomly in front of it. Liri knew she could evade the normal globules, but now the stuff was being sprayed all over, and not knowing how deadly it was, she didn't want even a single drop to touch her. _Wait. It has to act on contact with the skin, or spitting it out like this would do almost nothing. So..._

Liri focused again, but rather than her weapon's essence she found her own. She wasn't about to try to truly change it, but she was fairly sure what she did have in mind would work. She added the essence of earth into herself, and felt the effects immediately as she stumbled forward and fell to the ground. She was heavier now, not by too much to move but by enough that it completely threw off her sense of balance. _I can't fight like this, not until I get used to it._ But the change served its purpose, the earthen essence acting as a barrier to toxins, which affected only living things, preventing the beast's toxic spray from penetrating into her skin. The normal globules could probably overcome this effect-she'd deliberately limited how much earthen essence she added to herself-but she was safe against the spray. And though she couldn't move effectively, she didn't have to. After all, she was just the distraction.

More blasts of fire and electricity came at Liri. Feeling that she would be unable to evade as she was now, Liri directed her magic at the blasts, countering them with her own. The chimera then attempted to leap at her, only for Enkara to grab it by the snake-tail, spin it around, and throw it into the wall. And then a large piece of the ceiling fell and hit it, courtesy of Tilea.

The creature fell to the ground, but then got back on its feet. "Damn," Enkara said. "This thing just doesn't know when to quit."

"It's a guardian," Liri said as she removed the earthen essence from herself. "It will keep attacking until either we die or it does."

"Then we'll just have to take it out!"

They charged.

[end BGM]

* * *

"I'm back!" Sanae said as she entered the Moriya Shrine. Unnecessarily, yes-a shrine's god, or gods in this case, had complete awareness of its grounds-but she still preferred to say something when she entered.

Kanako Yasaka, goddess of the Moriya Shrine, appeared seemingly from nowhere. "Welcome home, Sanae. How was it?"

"The tengu's training regimen seems to be as effective as always. The warriors are quite capable in combat, and their teams in the exercises I observed performed very well."

"But you still have concerns."

"Of course I do. I've voiced them before. They fight well, individually and as a team, but we still don't have any good ways to train them _tactically_. Victory takes more than just ability in combat. I just worry that what they're doing won't be enough without a proper sense for tactics."

"Well," Kanako said, "as it happens, I've been looking into that, and I think Suwako and I have come up with a solution."

"You have?!"

"We have. You remember those 'tabletop RPGs' they had in the outside world, right?"

The seemingly irrelevant question confused Sanae, but she did indeed remember such things. It had been decades since she'd left the outside world, but she still remembered it, and though she had never been too interested in such pastimes, she knew what they were. "I do, yes."

"How much do you know of their origins?"

"Um... I think the first one was called... _Dungeons and Dragons_ , wasn't it?"

"True," Kanako said, "but that's not quite what I meant. _Dungeons and Dragons_ wasn't made up from scratch; the ideas came over time as changes to what were once games with a military focus. Where players controlled soldiers on a battlefield rather than heroes on a quest. And _those_ games evolved from something else. Their origins, and thus the origins of tabletop RPGs, can be traced back to something called _Kriegspiel_."

"Called what?" Sanae said. "What's... krig-whatever?"

" _Kriegspiel._ I believe the name translates as 'war game', although I'm not certain. It was developed in... Prussia, I think? It was a war exercise, meant to allow players to train themselves tactically. I've been thinking of ways to address your concerns, and eventually, I remembered _Kriegspiel_. Suwako and I have been working on a version for Gensokyo for some time now. Come, over here."

Kanako let Sanae to a table. From seemingly nowhere, she produced a large sheet of paper and rolled it out on the tabletop. "This is a sample terrain map. The actual 'game' would be played on a to-scale field, complete with terrain features such as forestation and varying heights. Each player starts the game with their respective forces in their initial positions and a summary of the scenario as commanders in an actual battle would know it. But here we get to the key mechanic of _Kriegspiel_ , the reason why it succeeded where other attempts at making 'war games' failed: incomplete information.

"I don't actually know how it was done with _Kriegspiel_ , but in our version, there will be multiple fields, separate from each other. Each player has a field, and another is used by the 'umpire'. The umpire is the only one who knows the positions of all players' forces; no player can see another's field, and the umpire's field is available only to the umpire.

"So, onto the flow of the game. Each player starts with whatever information she would have in the scenario being played. The players decide what orders to give their 'troops', and relay those orders to the umpire. The umpire then puts these orders into play, informing each player of the results. Anything found by scouts, results of combat, whatever might have happened. Of course, again, each player learns only those things her forces would know. They don't know the positions of enemy soldiers, for example, until their own have 'discovered' them."

"Interesting," Sanae said. "I think I like it. How are the results of combat determined?"

"The umpire evaluates a variety of factors relating to the troops encountering each other, including number, composition of forces, whether one group surprised the other, and many others. These are compared according to a very comprehensive set of rules, and the result determines the results: how many of each side were injured, how many were killed, how many retreated, how many were captured, and anything else that might happen as an outcome of the encounter. These results are then given to the players-although again, each player learns only what her forces know and would be able to tell her. It's quite possible for a player to hear nothing of her troops' fate, if all involved in the encounter were captured or killed."

"You've been thorough, then."

"We have," Kanako said. "There's a reason it took a couple months for us to work everything out. We borrowed the basic idea from _Kriegspiel_ , but adapting it for Gensokyo was... complicated."

"I can imagine," Sanae said. "Magic _does_ complicate things, doesn't it? I would never choose the outside world over Gensokyo, but sometimes I do miss its relative simplicity. It's been over half a century since we came here, and I'm still confused most of the time."

"I don't think anyone truly understands Gensokyo," Kanako said, "not even Yukari herself. You're used to it by now, though, right?"

Sanae nodded. "Doesn't mean I don't miss the outside world's simplicity from time to time. But you're right; I am used to it. I couldn't live here without that being the case. And I do live here, and mean to continue doing so. That's what this is about."

"I know," Kanako said. "I'm not sure how much longer we can keep this up, though. Sooner or later, the tengu and kappa will begin to questions us. Question _you_ , rather; Suwako and I have made our support known, but the entire mountain knows you're the one behind this. Your divinity is still young, Sanae; if you lose what faith you have, your divinity may well vanish with it."

"If our people question me," Sanae said, "I'll find some way to keep them on their current track. I don't care what it takes. Anything is preferable to what will happen if I fail. I may not have realized the threat until last year's 'wicked moon' incident', but now I have, and fortunately it didn't happen too late. I _will_ protect us, Kanako. I _will_ keep us, keep our lives here, safe. Whatever it takes."

* * *

It took a while longer, but eventually, finally, the beast fell and didn't get up. "Damn, that thing could take a beating," Enkara said. "What the hell _is_ it?"

"I'm afraid I don't truly know," Liri said. "It looks like a creature from outside-world mythology, but not one that was ever confirmed to exist. Nobody's seen one before."

"Huh?" Tilea said. "Then how do they know what it looks like? And how do _you_ know?"

"I can think of a few possible origins. Perhaps a shapeshifter took on such a form, or it was an illusion. Or maybe a storyteller wanted a strange creature and made it up. I don't know. As to how _I_ know of the creature, I simply came across a depiction of one in a book. You browse the shelves in Voile enough, you find all manner of random pieces of information."

"Voile?" Enkara said. "That library at the vampire's mansion? I've heard about that. Doesn't the magician there hate it when people take books? I thought she used to try to chase the black-white out all the time. Even the underground hears those stories."

" _I_ borrow books properly, and always return them by the agreed date. Marisa, the 'black-white', never did either. Always said Patchouli could have them back when she died. And it was quite literally the exact day she died, too. Patchouli went out to reclaim them as soon as she heard the news. The first time she'd left the mansion in centuries, apparently."

"She never goes outside?" Tilea said. "Jeez, she must be boring. I'd go nuts after even just one day what's happening to the monster?"

"Hm?" Liri looked over at the dead chimera, and saw its form seem to... melt away, almost, until it was completely gone. "That was... interesting. Another sign this wasn't a summoning."

"So, what," Enkara said, "it was just conjured from thin air or something?"

"No. Not possible. Living beings, even the simplest of beasts, cannot simply be made from nothing. Even those youkai born from immaterial concepts such as emotions are born from _something_."

"What about taking something and making life out of it?"

"Also not possible. Oh, you can make a body, but actually giving it _life_ is another matter entirely. Look at Alice Margetroid, the dollmaker. She can make dolls easily, but she's been trying for decades without success to give one life. A biological body like that chimera's is far, _far_ harder to make-you can count the number of magicians who've tried and succeeded on one hand-and every bit as hard to actually bring life to. Although... such a construct _could_ be animated magically. If there were anyone around to do so, of course. I wonder if... well, no, this isn't the place for this. I can think of a few possibilities, but I'll have to do some research before I can draw any conclusions. For now..." She inspected the symbol on the ground. "This does bear some resemblance to a summoning circle, but there are significant differences. I'm not sure what these elements do, but what I _can_ say is that it's inert, inactive. It's of no further danger."

"Then come on," Tilea said, "let's see what the thing on the wall over there is."

* * *

Liora was exiting her workshop when the small device pinned to her shirt beeped. _That'll be Nitori. Guess she finally noticed I was gone._ She pressed a finger against it to activate it, and Nitori's voice came from it. "Liara, are you there?"

Liora hadn't expected the urgency she'd just heard in Nitori's voice. "I'm here. What is it?"

"I'm being attacked!"

"What?!"

"Liora, get to my workshop, grab a Binder, and then get over here!"

"I'll be there as soon as I can!" Liora pressed on the device again to deactivate it, then took off through the village. Fortunately, Nitori's workshop was close to hers, and she was there in less than a minute. She ran in, grabbed one of the cylindrical Binder devices from its shelf, and ran back out, slowing only to close the door behind herself. Then she took off again, heading back to the test site as quickly as she could.

* * *

Alraune slowed her pace as Akora flew up beside her. "Why are you slowing down?"

"They just won," Alraune said, "killed the thing that attacked them. I guess I underestimated them."

"That is no surprise. You are poor at gauging threats to others. Just because you can defeat the three of them, or even the three of them and me, doesn't mean others can. They are, after all, quite capable. I, however, realized that they would likely not need assistance. And even if they did, you could easily have provided said assistance on your own."

"And yet, you came anyways."

"You were insistent."

"You know very well I was about to rush off with or without you. You easily could have stayed behind."

"...I suppose you are correct. Strange that this did not occur to me."

"That's not strange at all. Your friends were in danger-and whether you realize it or not, you definitely think of them as friends; that's been clear for a while now. It's normal to feel an urge to help your friends when they're in danger."

"I see. Well, if nothing else, I suppose I do not find their presence particularly unpleasant."

Alraune chuckled. "Right. Well, anyways, I'm gonna keep going, join up with them. You coming?"

"...I suppose I might as well."

"Good. Okay, then, let's go." Their pace was slower now that the danger had passed, but the two of them resumed flight towards their destination, Alraune being sure to keep watch in case a new danger appeared.

* * *

Liora arrived to see Nitori fending off two attackers. A blast of water knocked one into a tree, but it recovered quickly. Nitori hit the second one with another blast, with the same result.

Liora landed next to Nitori. "I'm here!"

"Good! You know how to use that thing?"

"Yeah."

"Then grab one of these things, and I'll take out the other!"

"Got it." The Binder was an open cylinder, and Liora reached inside it, extending a small tube. It was an aiming sight, connected to the machinery at the device's center, and Liora aimed it at one of the attackers, then pushed the button on the side of the sight. A small, dart-like object shot out from the other end of the Binder, sticking itself into the target. And then the Binder went to work. The cylinder flew towards the target, leaving Liora holding only the central part of the device. The seemingly solid cylinder separated into several rings, which further split into halves. Then the central device shot out of Liora's hand and flew over to the target. It shot out a connecting cord to one end of each of the half-rings, which swung around the target before each half-ring attached at its free end to another half-ring. Then the device charged the cords with energy, hardening them and preventing the target from moving.

With one of the attackers captured, Nitori ceased holding back against the other. She withdrew a weapon from her pack and fired repeatedly, hitting it repeatedly with magically-charged blasts. Then she launched missiles and bombs at it from her pack, then finished it off with another magic-charged blast. But rather than its dead body collapsing to the ground as one would expect, it simply... fell apart. And then each piece burst into what appeared to be some sort of mist, which quickly faded, leaving no trace of the attacker behind.

"...Well," Liora said. "Now I know why you needed the Binder."

"Yeah," Nitori said. "There were three of them, and the first one did that when I killed it. So I had you get the Binder so we could capture one to show the shrine."

"You think this is what Lady Kochiya's been telling us to look for, then? Those things?"

"They meet enough of the criteria. Humanoid, but misshapen. Mindlessly aggressive. A dark color. The lack of any sort of indication of life-they have no lifesigns I could detect. And she said what we were looking for might not leave bodies behind; that's why I came up with the Binder in the first place, remember? To capture one if we couldn't present an intact dead body."

"Yeah. So then... if this is what she wanted us to watch for, then..."

"Then we need to show it to her. We'll have to postpone the testing. You gather up the equipment, all right? I've got a monster to take to the shrine."

"Sure thing," Liora said.

Nitori placed her hand on the central device of the Binder, then withdrew it. Her hand remained connected to the device by a magic tether, and as she rose into the air, the tether pulled the bound creature after her. "Be careful, Liora. There may be more of those things around."

"You, too, Nitori," Liora said as Nitori took off up the mountain. "You, too."

* * *

 **Well, looks like things are getting interesting rig** **ht out of the gate.**

 **Anyways, welcome to my latest Touhou fic, _End Fantasy._ I hope you enjoy it.**

 **Now, a few notes:**

 **1: As usual, this story in no way shares continuity with any other of my stories. Some elements may reappear (readers of _Radiant Decay_ will recognize the Keine/Tenshi pairing, for example. I'm really not sure why that pairing appeals to me, but it does), but the stories are completely separate from each other.**

 **2: Yes, several OCs featured prominently in this chapter, and yes, they will continue to have a major role. I know Touhou OCs have a bad reputation, so I'd like to clarify that there will be no so-called 'Gappy Stu's here. They're terrible, and I would never write one, so don't worry. In fact, nobody from the outside world will be coming to Gensokyo in this story. If, however, you object to Touhou OCs in general, it may interest you to know that I generally prefer to use canon characters myself. _Radiant Decay_ had only one OC among the main characters and a couple minor ones, and the fic before it, _Orphan_ , had no OC main characters (a couple appeared briefly as minor characters, but that was it). So why, then, am I using OCs here? Simple: there aren't any canon characters that would work in their roles. There will also be quite a few minor OCs, simply because they're going to be needed (and because Gensokyo has a larger population than just the canon characters, as many of those as there are, and I want that to come across clearly).**

 **3: I do not intend to limit myself to only those locations seen in canon. I feel that Gensokyo would have more cities/towns/villages/whatever than the few seen in canon, and more other locations as well, so don't be surprised if unfamiliar places show up. Also, I don't know if Gensokyo canonically has a size, so it's quite possible that my version is larger than canon Gensokyo.**

 **4: I'm aware that some of the real-world things I mention (which in this chapter were _Kriegspiel_ and the chimera) may not be portrayed 100% accurately. I'm not concerned with 100% accuracy, though. Besides, since when have Gensokyo's creatures been accurate to their historical portrayals?**

 **5: I know a lot of authors don't like getting negative feedback, don't like hearing people say they dislike parts of a story. I am not one of those authors. I want to hear whatever you have to say, good or bad. Hearing only positive feedback doesn't help me improve as a writer nearly as much as hearing both positive and negative feedback does. That said, I don't want to be insulted. I want to hear about things you dislike in the story, yes; just don't be rude about it.**

 **And that's all for now, I think. I hope you enjoy the story, and I encourage everyone to give reviews and tell me what you think.**


	3. Chapter 2: As It Begins

**Chapter 2  
** _As It Begins_

"Okay," Tilea said, "I have no idea what this says."

"It's no system of writing I know of, either," Liri said, "but the message seems fairly obvious. Tilea, I don't think there'll be any more danger, but I'd like you to keep watch anyways, all right?"

"Sure!" Tilea flew over to the side of the room, landing on a pillar of rock she raised from the ground. "Lookout Tilea, on duty!"

"Thanks." Liri turned back to the wall. "All right, then. Enkara, you can help me with this. I believe we're looking at a puzzle of some sort. In order to move on, we'll need to solve it."

"I probably won't be any more help figuring this out than Tilea," Enkara said. "I'm not good with puzzles. Maybe I should step aside, too."

"You're more clever than you give yourself credit for. Besides, it can help just to have someone to discuss the puzzle with."

"Well, all right, then. In that case, what, exactly, are we dealing with here?"

They looked over the puzzle on the wall. Below the unknown writing was a marked area containing multiple square 'tiles', with ever space without a tile having its own mark:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _/o

l , , , , , , , / , , _ _ , , _ _ _ _ _ _ _ /

l , , , , / , , , , , , , , \ , , , , , , , , , , l

l , , , | , , , _ _ , , , , \ , , , , , , , , , l

l , , , | , , , , \ , , , , , , \ _ _ _, , / , l

l , , , | , , , , , , , / _ _ / , , , _ , , | ,l

l , / , , , , \ _ _ , , , , , , , , , , , , | , l

l / , , , , | , , | _ _ , , , | , , , , , / , ,l

l , , | , | _ _ , , , , , _ _ _ _ _/ , , , ,l

l , , , , , \ , , , | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , l

_ | _ _ _\\_ _ | _ _ _\ _ _ | _ _/_ _ l

"Hmm..." Liri touched the circle at the top, and as soon as she did, it began rolling. It rolled down the first '/' slope and across the row of '_' marks to the left until it reached the first pair of ',' marks, which it fell through onto the '\' slope below. It rolled down that slope and across to the right, falling through the next ',' pair, then rolled left down that slope and across. It rolled off the end, dropped to the bottom, rolled into the '|', and came to a halt. The entire field briefly glowed red, then the circle faded out and reappeared at the top.

"Well, then," Enkara said. "So that's supposed to be a ball or something."

"Yes. And it looks like..." Liri touched one of the '/' marks and found that she could slide it from side to side. "As I suspected." She then touched one of the 'l' marks on the right side, but it didn't move at all.

"So what is this, then? Some sort of grid?"

"A good way to think of it, I suppose. Yes, let's call this a grid, containing various tiles. The ball rolls along the tiles, with the ',' marks representing empty spaces. It looks like each tile can be moved two spaces left and right, aside from the outer walls of the grid, which can't be moved. And..." She touched the '/' tiles next to the ball, but again, neither moved. "Those are also locked in place."

"So then we move these tiles around to make a path for the ball? I'm guessing the goal is to get it out that opening at the bottom-left corner, then?"

"I believe so, yes."

"Okay. Man, why the hell is this even here?"

"I don't know," Liri said, "but there is definite power within it. If we solve this, I expect it to open a path onward."

"...Huh. I really don't get why this is here, but whatever. Let's see what we can do, then."

"Right. First, let's move this one and this one, and see what that does. Then..."

Experimentation soon revealed a few additional properties. First, as would be expected, one tile couldn't be moved through another. Another rule was that the ball could only fall through an area of two or more spaces; in a gap of a single space, it became stuck, triggering a failure and resetting the puzzle. There was no such limitation vertically, however; even if it was on a '_ _ _' path and another was directly overhead, it didn't get stuck. _Although the tiles are taller and wider than the empty spaces,_ Liri thought, _so that might be why._ Another property was that if the ball rolled into the front of a slope, left into a '\' tile or right into a '/' tile, it reversed direction and rolled the other way. If, however, it rolled into a '|' tile or the back end of a slope tile, it immediately came to a halt. The ball also came to a halt if it fell onto a '|' tile. Liri and Enkara incorporated all of this knowledge into subsequent attempts, but even so, each try ended in failure.

"Damn," Enkara said after another failure, "this is tough."

"It is, but there's nothing to do but keep at it. So let's try again. What if we move this tile left one space, and this one..."

* * *

"This is it," Alranue said as she and Akora landed. "That's the cave they're in. Still looks like they don't need us, though."

"Fortunate," Akora said. "I would rather remain outside the cave."

"Oh, right, you don't like being underground. I understand that. Hell, I'm not too fond of it, either. Most plants don't do too well underground, you know. As a youkai, I can manage it, but it's still unpleasant."

"Does that mean you, too, intend to remain here?"

"Well... you know, that may be the right idea. I'd be willing to go in there, I guess, but they're in the middle of something right now, trying to solve some sort of puzzle. May be best not to interrupt their concentration. So yeah, I think I will wait out here." Alranue chuckled. "We rush all the way out here, and now we're just sitting around waiting."

"Then it seems I was right from the beginning; there was no purpose in our coming here."

"And yet you came anyways."

"I believe we had that conversation previously."

"Yeah, I guess so, huh?" Alranue found a decent-sized rock and sat down. "Well, whatever. Anyways, I'll keep an eye on those three in case they need help, but unless that happens, we'll meet them here as they exit."

* * *

Another failure. "Damn it," Enkara said. "It's the wall tiles in the lower left. That last wall tile. We've found several ways to get the ball down there, but nothing that can get it past that one last tile."

"There has to be some way," Liri said. "If there's not supposed to be a way to continue past here, there wouldn't be a puzzle in the first place. It would just look to be a dead end."

"I guess that's true. But then how do we do it?"

"Hmm... we need to get the ball further to the left. Maybe... the ball gets stuck in a single-space gap, but what about..." Liri touched the leftmost floor tile on the top row and tried to move it only half a space over, but the tile wouldn't stop there; it kept sliding until it had moved a full space. "No. Hmm..."

"Can we move tiles while the ball is rolling?"

"Let's try." Liri touched the ball, but the tiles didn't move while the ball was rolling. "No."

"What if we carve a path into it? Turn empty spaces into floor tiles?" Enkara found a rock with a sharp point and tried to carve a new path, but any marks made within the grid vanished. "Damn. What... what's left?"

 _What's the solution, then? We've tried everything within the apparent rules, we've tried half-spaces, we've tried making new paths, we've tried..._ "We're overthinking this," Liri muttered. _We're missing something. Probably something simple, but I can't see what it is. How do I figure out... wait._ "Hey, Tilea! You seen anything?"

"No," Tilea said.

"All right, then. I don't think we need a lookout any more."

"Okay!" Tilea flew back to the other two. "What're you two doing?"

"Trying to solve this puzzle," Liri said. "We have to move these tiles around somehow so this ball can fall down to this opening here."

"Huh." Tilea took a look at the puzzle. "Wait, I'm confused. There's a floor there. It can't fall through floor, can it? It has to go sideways. How's it supposed to fall sideways?"

There was silence for a moment, then Liri spoke. "Of course. Of _course_. So simple the two of us just couldn't see it." She inspected the wall much more closely than before. "Yes, there's a separation here. The grid isn't on the rest of the wall. It's its own piece." _I was right to call her over. She noticed the simple thing we'd overlooked._ She looked at the grid again. "Okay..." She reset all the tiles to their starting positions, "so the path would take it... here, so this one needs to be moved..." She touched the lower-left '|' tile, the one that had stymied their efforts so many times, and moved it one space to the right. "There. Enkara, try to turn it."

Enkara walked up next to Liri. "Well... I could, if I tore a trough or something out of the wall to make room for my hand. But there's a better way. Tilea, you turn it."

"Huh?" Tilea said. "How am I supposed to turn it? You're the stronger one."

"...It's rock, dummy. Use your power to turn it."

"Oh, yeah!" Tilea focused, reaching out with her power. "Yeah, the puzzle's on a different piece of rock. Which way should I turn it?"

"This way." Liri made a counter-clockwise motion with her hand. "Turn it 90 degrees."

"90... degrees? How do I turn something a temperature?"

"That's... not what I meant. All right, I'll just tell you when to stop. Okay?"

"Okay!" Tilea reached out again, and the puzzle began to turn. Once it had rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise, Liri called out to stop. "Okay!"

"Good," Liri said. "Okay, let's try this."

Liri touched the ball, and it rolled into the grid and fell down, past what used to be '_' tiles but now acted as '|' tiles. It landed on a slope and rolled down, falling to the next slope. It rolled, fell again, rolled down and across, then fell down to the next slope. It rolled down that slope, across what was now the 'floor' of the grid, and fell through the opening. The grid glowed again, but green this time, and then a section of the wall next to the puzzle lowered into the ground.

"Well, then," Enkara said. "Guess that worked. Kind of an obscure solution, though."

"Perhaps it was meant to be," Liri said. "Or, alternatively, maybe there's a clue in the wording of that text we can't read. Either way, though, we managed to solve it."

"Yep!" Tilea ran over to the new passage. "I think the thing's just through here! Come on!"

They followed Tilea into the passage, which eventually led to another chamber, though this one was smaller. A pedestal stood in the center of the chamber, in the middle of an intricate magic design of some kind. On top of the pedestal was a black sphere within a cage of magic energy.

Tilea, previously enthusiastic, had suddenly become much more subdued. "I don't like this place."

Enkara took a step into the chamber, then quickly backed out. "Wow. Okay, yeah, is anyone else getting a serious sense of ' _leave this the fuck alone_ '?"

"I don't know what that object is," Liri said, "but I can tell that it's extremely dangerous."

"Well, if nothing else, _someone_ clearly didn't want it disturbed. I mean, a hidden cave, a seal on the entrance, that guardian, the puzzle thing, and now whatever all these symbols in here do? Yeah, I'm thinking someone wanted people to _stay the hell away_."

"These ones aren't meant to keep people out. Everything we've encountered so far was, but everything you see in this room is directed inward. This part isn't supposed to keep anyone out; it's supposed to keep something _in_. Something extremely powerful; you probably don't realize it, but what we're seeing here is... extreme. And even with it in place, we still felt something from outside."

"I don't want to be here any more," Tilea said. "Can we leave?"

"I would recommend it," Liri said. "I don't know what that object in there is, but I'm fairly certain that proceeding further towards it would be a very bad idea."

"Agreed," Enkara said. "Let's get the hell out of here."

* * *

"Someone's here," Kanako said, looking up from the diagrams and rule sheets she had spread out on the table. "And... some _thing_ , too."

Sanae didn't have the same sense of the shrine that its gods did, but she could feel it, too. Its presence was unlike anything she'd encountered before. "What... _is_ that?"

Sanae and Kanako exited the shrine, Suwako joining them as the kappa Nitori landed, carrying some manner of creature with her.

Nitori got straight to business. "This thing just attacked me. There were two others, but I killed them."

Sanae walked over to the creature. "You're using that restraining device you developed."

"The Binder, yes. Their bodies disappear when they die."

"Then..." Sanae took a closer look at the creature. "This is..."

"You gave us a list of characteristics. These things have several of them. Mindless aggression, humanoid but misshapen, disappear when dead, no detectable signs of life. That's why I captured it and brought it here, because you said that's what you wanted if such a creature appeared."

"...You were right to." _It's beginning._ She turned to face Nitori. "I'm declaring Condition Blue. Pass the word to the kappa. And take this thing back to the kappa village for analysis. Learn as much as possible about it."

"That's not my area," Nitori said, "but I'll take it to the right people." She took the creature and flew off down the mountain.

Suwako chuckled. "You actually called it 'Condition Blue'."

"Well, yeah." Sanae said. "Why not? It's easy to remember."

"And it lets you sound like a spaceship captain. But you're right; it does its job."

"Yeah. Okay, we need to pass word to the tengu, too. I'll inform them personally. Kanako, help me gather up all the information on that 'Kriegspiel' variant; I'll take it with me and introduce it to the tengu while I'm there. We need to get them started on that kind of tactical exercise immediately. Fortunately, we should still have time before we need any large-scale action, but we can't waste any of it." Sanae ran into the shrine.

Suwako chuckled again. "Well, she's gotten assertive, hasn't she?"

"It's good," Kanako said. "Even if she's wrong – and whatever we may say about her concerns, I know very well that you believe her just as much as I do – knowing how to assert herself is essential for her future."

"Yeah."

* * *

[bgm=/watch?v=g29yRC-6Vuk&index=17&list=PLVy9a32AccW_QPzQ0zPQnnEMOH_CTtYHD]

 _Sanae Kochiya. 'The Maiden of Miracles', as she's known by many._

 _Sanae came to Gensokyo about half a century ago along with Kanako Yasaka and Suwako Moriya, the gods for whom she served as shrine maiden. That had lived in the outside world until then, but moved to Gensokyo as their faith declined. Kanako quickly became a dominant figure on the mountain, gaining faith from the kappa and tengu. But that was then; now, it is Sanae who merits the most attention._

 _Sanae Kochiya is not simply a shrine maiden. She is of divine heritage, a descendent of Suwako, one of the gods she served. In the outside world, she and her ancestors has lived as humans, though their powers did set them apart from most. But while Sanae was human before coming to Gensokyo, this is no longer the case._

 _In the outside world, mostly devoid of magic, Sanae's divine aspect remained dormant. Living in Gensokyo, the land of magic, is what stimulated it enough to awaken it. Eventually, it will become dominant. The process is already well underway; even now, Sanae is no longer fully human. Before long, she will leave her humanity behind and become fully divine._

 _We owe the Maiden of Miracles much, for it is she who foresaw the threat Gensokyo faced, even if she didn't truly understand. But she was not the only figure of importance. Others had their roles to play, as well. The magician Liri Takoru and her companions, Keine Kamashirasawa of the human village, the kappa Nitori Kawashiro, the one known incorrectly as Rumia, many were involved. I, too, had a role to play, and as unpleasant as it was, I knew what it would entail, and it was a choice I would make again._

 _I have that thought often, that I would make the same choice, but then I wonder: did I ever make it? Was there ever a choice? Am I making my own choices even now? Have I ever? I wonder, and then I tell myself that of course we had some freedom of choice, that if we didn't have some freedom within the control we never could have removed its influence. But then I think that, indeed, it would never have allowed us to remove its influence, which could mean that we_ didn't _remove its influence. So I continue to question what I see, what I think, what I choose._ Do _I choose, or is even my decision to make this record in fact beyond my control?_

[end BGM]

* * *

Alranue got to her feet as Liri's group emerged from the cave. "Well, hi. Fancy meeting you here."

"Yeah, like you didn't know we were here," Enkara said. "Kinda surprised you just sat out here, actually."

"You know I don't like going underground. Akora even less so. Besides, you were in the middle of working on that puzzle when we got here, and we decided it'd be best not to interrupt your concentration."

"Then why did you bother waiting?" Liri said.

"I have been wondering this myself," Akora said. "It seems pointless, but Alranue insisted."

"What? We can't just spend time together? That's kind of a thing friends do, you know."

"Well," Liri said, "I'm afraid I have other things to do. How much of what happened in there did you see?"

"All of it."

"Then you know how many questions I have."

"And you being you, you're going to start looking for the answers right away."

"Of course. Which means I'll be heading off."

"We'll just come with you, then!" Tilea said.

"I can only think of one place in Gensokyo that might have any information for me, and that is Voile Library."

"Oh," Tilea said. "Yeah, I don't wanna go there. That place is boring. Oh! I know!" She flew over to Alranue. "Come with me, 'Raea! I want to introduce you to someone! That girl I've been telling you about's probably here somewhere! She likes to hang out around here."

Alranue suppressed a chuckle. "Actually, if you're talking about who I think you are, I can sense her approaching us – probably because she senses me. In fact, she'll be getting here right... about... now."

And she was right; the person landed almost exactly when Alranue had finished speaking. "Hey, 'Raea. Wasn't expecting you to be hanging around here." She looked around. "And you've brought the whole gang with you, too."

"Tilea's the one who brought Liri and Enkara here. I decided to follow them, and dragged Akora along with me."

"Yeah," Tilea said, "I brought them here to explore-hey, wait a minute! You two know each other?"

The newcomer laughed. "Not too sharp, are you?" She turned back to Alranue. "Til's been going on about you for a while now. Kept saying she wanted to introduce me to you. I don't think it ever occurred to her."

"Huh? What're you talking about?"

Alranue ignored Tilea and turned instead to Akora. "Well, it just so happens that there is someone here to introduce you to. Akora, this is my younger sister, Rafflesia. 'Sia, this is Akora."

"Yeah," Rafflesia said, "I've heard about you. Haven't been a youkai for very long, right? Well, nice to meet you."

"Yes," Akora said, "that is, as I understand it, the appropriate phrase in this situation, so: it is nice to meet you, too."

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait," Tilea said. "You two are sisters?"

"I'm not sure how even you could've missed it," Rafflesia said. "I mean, I basically look like a younger her. And we have similar abilities. It's pretty obvious that-"

Rafflesia was cut of by a brief flare of magic, and then Liri stepped back from the cave entrance. "There."

"What was that?" Tilea asked. "What'd you do?"

"Re-sealed the entrance to the cave. I don't know what that thing in there is, but having a seal on the place where it is strikes me as a very good idea. The puzzle should reset, meaning that there are still two of the three means used to keep people out. There's no way I could recreate the guardian – I didn't even know something like it was possible – but hopefully, this will do."

"Yeah, probably a good idea," Enkara said. "What about whoever made the first one, though?"

"The seal was very weak. It's likely that whoever made it is dead, and certain that the person in question hadn't bothered to maintain it even if alive. But in the unlikely event that she does return, I've left a message for her. There was still some residual energy from her seal. Not much, but enough to key a message to it, which means that the message will reveal itself only to her; nobody else will even know it's there. If she does, by some chance, return, the message will tell her what I did and where to find me. And now that that's done, I'll be off." And with that, Liri took off, heading away in the direction of the Scarlet Devil Mansion.

"I shall depart, as well," Akora said.

"Oh, no, you don't," Alranue said. "We're gonna get you to relax a bit whether you like it or not. And there's no better way to do that than by exposing you to Tilea. So, Tilea, how about we... do... something."

Rafflesia laughed. "Didn't really plan this out, huh?"

"Of course not. Where's the fun in that?"

"I know!" Tilea said. "Come on, let's go play with some of my other friends! Come on!"

"Might as well just accept it, Akora," Enkara said. "I don't think you're getting out of this."

"...Fine," Akora said. "Let us get this over with, then."

"Fair enough," Alranue said. "All right, then. Tilea, lead the way."

* * *

After storing the equipment, Liora hunted around in her workshop before finding the information she was looking for. She took the containing folder with her and made her way to another workshop.

As Liora entered, the kappa within the shop looked up from her current work. "Welcome! What can I- oh! Master Elseki!"

Liora sighed. "How much longer are you going to keep calling me that, Teliri?"

"I still think of you that way," Teliri said. "Don't know if I'll ever stop. Anyways, what're you doing here? It's not exactly common to see you in here."

"I'm here because I'm going to need help, and I don't know anyone better to go to than you."

"Well, I'd be happy to help, but I'm not sure what you think I can do that you can't."

"That's actually not the sort of help I need. I'm going to need something done, but I'll likely be... otherwise occupied."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Liora said, "you probably know Nitori's been working on a new optical camouflage system, right?" Teliri nodded. "Well, she's got a system that works – or will once she's worked out the bugs, at least – and she's using my camera pods and projectors in it."

"If she needs that sort of thing, she was right to go to you. Still not sure where I come in, though."

"Something happened, Tel. The order probably hasn't come down from the shrine yet, but I think it's safe to assume they'll be declaring Condition Blue."

"Shit," Teliri said, "really? What the hell happened?"

Liora described her and Nitori's encounter with the unknown creatures. "Nitori took the captured one up to the shrine. It's very much what Lady Kochiya told everyone to watch for. I'm betting Nitori'll be bringing the Blue order back with her."

"I'm still waiting on the 'why you need me' part."

"Lady Kochiya's told everyone where she thinks this will go. You know she expects each condition to lead into the next, and you know what it means if Blue gives way to Yellow and Yellow to Red."

"Bad things," Teliri said.

"Nitori and I are still working on the new optical camouflage system, but I doubt it'll be too much longer before it's working, and as soon as it is, Lady Kochiya will want it set up in as many places as possible. Camera pods, even good ones, are a dime a dozen, but only my projectors are sufficient for the new system,, and I don't have nearly as many as I'll need for multiple systems. Your stuff may not be at the quality of mine, but you're the closest anyone comes, and you're set up for rapid production."

"You need projectors, and quickly. That I can do, but I thought you said only yours were good enough. Are mine even sufficient?"

"They will be," Liora said, and handed Teliri the folder.

Teliri opened the folder and took a quick look at its contents. "This is-!"

"Schematics and specification for my current projector design. I imagine you can modify your production equipment to go from yours to this without much difficulty."

"I... yeah, I can do that, but... are you sure about this? You... you're giving me..."

"Everything you need to steal my design? Yeah. That's the other reason I came to you. I know I can trust you not to."

"...You're right. You can trust me. But... even if I only make yours for you, and switch immediately back to my own designs afterward, your design will still be in my head."

"It's not like you've never seen my designs before. Most of your stuff's already built on what you learned from me; tends to happen when you have someone as an apprentice."

"Good point. All right, then, I'll do it. And... thank you for trusting me with this."

"You're welcome."

"There's still the issue of payment," Teliri said. "I can't do this for free, even if it's for you."

"I wouldn't worry about that. This'll be on the shrine's order, remember? And we all know how generous they are with payment."

"Another good point. All right, then. You get the camouflage system working; I'll make sure you have the equipment it needs."

"That's the plan," Liora said. "Thanks, Teliri."

"Any time, Liora. Any time."

* * *

Keine sighed as she stepped out of her house to greet the approaching visitor. Not because of the visitor herself, but because of the two hostile-looking men following behind her. _Just because she's a youkai. Idiots. They know damn well the tengu are in no way hostile. Or_ should _know, at least._ "Well, this is unexpected. It's not often we're visited by any tengu other than Aya."

"I was sent here on the orders of Lady Kochiya," the tengu said. "My name is Karis. I was told to find Keine Kamishirasawa when I arrived here. These two," she motioned to the pair following her, "were... _kind_ enough to direct me here. Are you Keine?"

"I am. Why don't you come in? And you two," Keine called out to the two villagers, "you can leave." The pair turned and left without a word as Keine led Karis inside.

"I apologize for them," Keine said once they were inside. "There is growing anti-youkai sentiment among many of the villagers. I've tried to convince them otherwise, but they aren't willing to listen. I hope they haven't tainted your view of humans as a whole."

"Not at all. Although if this attitude is becoming widespread, it may present a problem. I'm afraid my orders require me to remain here for some time."

"Well, how about you tell me why you're here, then? Please, take a seat."

As Karis sat down, Tenshi came into the room. "Doesn't look like those two are coming back."

"Good," Keine said. "Hopefully they've learned that I will not tolerate attempts to spy on any guests I happen to have. Also, Tenshi, this is Karis. Karis, Tenshi Hinanawi."

"Nice to meet you," Karis said.

"Likewise. Keine, you want me to keep an eye out a little longer?"

Keine nodded. "Just in case."

"They spy on you," Karis said as Tenshi left the room again.

"Not on me. On you, and on any other youkai who come here. And I suppose 'spy' isn't really the right word. 'Observe' is probably more accurate."

"I know you sometimes have trouble with youkai here, but are things really that bad?"

Keine sighed again. "No, but a fair portion of the villagers think it is. Tensions are high right now, especially since there've been more disappearances than normal lately."

"More 'than normal'."

"Well, we generally have a few, mostly among those who spend significant time away from the village. It's all too easy to stumble upon an unfriendly youkai, unfortunately, even at the best of times. But it's been happening more than usual lately. The local youkai hunters have intensified their efforts in response, but there are those who aren't satisfied with that. Who generalize what's been happening and apply the behavior of some youkai to all youkai. We're all wary – some youkai truly are hostile – but these people have slid down into outright hate. For _all_ youkai, not just the hostile ones. Even Hijiri's followers are having... unpleasant experiences with them. Fortunately, they're still a minority here, but they're a growing one."

"I see," Karis said. "Well, that may make things more difficult. My orders will, as I said before, keep me here for some time."

"Perhaps you should tell me what your orders are, then."

"Of course. Basically, Lady Kochiya believes that Gensokyo is in danger."

"Hold on," Keine said. "Gensokyo's in danger? From what?"

"She said she didn't know exactly what form the danger would take, but she gave us some signs that it was coming and told us to watch for them. Apparently, a couple kappa encountered some manner of unknown creatures earlier today, creatures that met several criteria, including humanoid-but-misshapen forms, mindless aggression, and the fact that their bodies disappear upon death. This was enough for Lady Kochiya to give the order for what she calls 'Condition Blue'."

"And that is?"

"A state of general readiness. Condition Blue assumes a condition of general danger, and is designed to allow for rapid response. Blue gives way to Yellow, which indicates the expected arrival of a major threat, and Condition Red means said threat is present."

"So escalating readiness, then. Each condition assumes a greater danger."

"More or less. I'm here under Condition Blue."

"My first assumption," Keine said, "would be that you're here to warn us of this potential danger, but that wouldn't require you to remain here. So what _is_ your purpose here?"

"Lady Kochiya has believed for a year now that a threat to Gensokyo would appear, and has been taking measures to prepare for it. We've been conducting training regimens and other preparations for some time. As such, we are far better prepared to meet any enemy that arrives. Lady Kochiya believes that villages may come under attack by the creatures the kappa saw, possibly in numbers significant enough that the villages would be unable to repel them. Some places, of course, aren't a concern – the oni, for example, can probably handle anything they're faced with – but Lady Kochiya doesn't want to risk any of the other villages being wiped out."

"And that includes us," Keine said.

"Yes."

"Hey," Tenshi called out from the next room, "Keine and I can handle a lot."

"I was told as much, but I was also told that you two are the only individuals of significant power and combat ability in the village."

"Not quite true," Keine said. "The youkai hunters generally know what they're doing. Although I will agree that there aren't many here with much power."

"Hunting," Karis said, "is not the same as fighting. Hunters manipulate the situation to their advantage and strike quickly. They select their targets carefully, and plan accordingly. A skilled hunter is a skilled killer, but not necessarily a skilled _fighter_."

"...I suppose that's true. Still, I feel confident that we are capable of handling danger."

"Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I've been stationed here. Others are stationed at various youkai villages that also lack significant combat ability. Many villages are, after all, populated primarily by weaker youkai."

"Banding together for safety, yes."

"Anyways, my role here is simple. I am to remain here in case of a threat to the village, and if one shows itself, I am to send an alert. I've been provided with a kappa-made communication device for that purpose. We have a quick-response unit on standby, made up of our fastest warriors."

"Who will move immediately to assist any village under attack," Keine said. "I see. Well, if that's the case, then I'm grateful for Lady Kochiya's concern and willingness to aid. But you're right; this will complicate things. There are those who will be... unhappy with your presence here. They would no doubt have you under constant observation, and you would likely be a victim of harassment. I doubt anyone would actually attack you, but even so, that, too, is a possibility."

"I'll just have to deal with all of that," Karis said, "because I intend to follow my orders."

"Actually, there may be a better way. It sounds like you don't truly have to stay _in_ the village, as long as you can keep watch for threats to it. What if I were to tell you that there was a place nearby where you could stay without issue and yet remain close enough to execute your orders?"

"What place would that be?" Karis asked. Then, "Wait, of course. The Myouren Temple."

"Yes. I'm sure they'd allow you to stay there. It may not actually be within the village, but it's close enough that staying there shouldn't hinder your ability to carry out your orders. And the anti-youkai crowd won't bother you there. Even the worst of them don't actually go to the temple."

"Really?"

Keine nodded. "Byakuren may be a youkai, but she aids humans as well as youkai. It also helps that she was originally human. And that the reason she sought to become a youkai was because of a fear of death, something they can all relate to. Not that they like her, or agree with her, because they don't. And her youkai followers are treated just as coldly as any other youkai."

"But not Byakuren herself."

"They see her as mistaken, an idealist who doesn't accept the reality of things. But that's it. Anyways, yes, you'll be safe from them there, and you should be able to do your job just fine."

"It sounds that way." Karis got to her feet. "Very well, then. I'll still have to come to the village frequently, but I think it will make things easier if I'm not actually staying here. Guess I'm off to the temple, then. Thanks for the advice."

"Not a problem," Keine said.

* * *

"Gah!" Cirno jerked back, barely avoiding the claws of the... whatever it was that was attacking her. "Fine, then." She leapt into the air, formed a large mallet of ice, and slammed it down on the thing's head. "Take that!" Then she smashed it in the chest, knocking it back. "And that!" She shattered the mallet and sent the shards flying at the creature, ripping through it. "How do you like _that_?" But the creature was still alive, and moved toward her again. "Oh, come on!" She formed a sword of ice. "Fine, then. We'll do it this way."

The creature tried to charge Cirno, but was interrupted by Wriggle flying in from above and kicking it in the head. Mystia followed her in, tearing through the thing with her talons. And then Cirno ran in, stabbed it through the chest, and swung her blade upwards, slicing up through its head. And then the creature fell to the ground, dead, and its body faded away into nothingness.

Daiyousei flew down to join the others. "Are you three okay?"

"Yeah," Wriggle said. "That thing could take a beating, but it wasn't too good at dishing it out."

"That's good. I'm sorry I couldn't help."

"Eh, don't worry about it," Cirno said. "You're the thinker, not the fighter. I can handle anything that comes at us."

"Suuuuuuure," Mystia said.

"Shut up or I'll kick you around to prove I can."

"Well," Wriggle said, "you're certainly right the Dai's the smart one. So, Dai, any idea just what the heck that thing was?"

"I've never heard of anything like it," Daiyousei said. "I don't know what it was. But something about it just felt... wrong. I can't really explain it."

"You don't suppose that thing got Rumia, do you? It'd explain why we can't find her anywhere."

"No way," Cirno said. "That thing wasn't very fast. It couldn't have caught her, and Rumia knows to run if she can't win."

"Unlike you," Mystia said.

"Hey! I only don't run because I'm the strongest!"

"And yet you've lost to quite a few people."

"That's just because I wasn't trying very hard! Also, shut up!"

"Well," Daiyousei said, "I do agree that Rumia would probably just flee. I doubt that thing got her. But there's no reason it has to be the only one there is, and others might be faster. We should try to find her quickly."

"Then come on," Cirno said, "let's hurry and go look somewhere else! Come on!"

* * *

"So, then. Is that all you know?"

There were seven of them, four men and three women, all humans of the village. The one who'd just spoken was Kiro. Going clockwise from him, the next was his wife, Harui. Then there was Hoshu, a longtime friend of his, and Junpei, a not-quite-as-longtime friend. Next were the brother-and-sister pair of Daichi and Elise, skilled youkai hunters who worked as a pair, and last was Sirena. They were all seated in the main room of an unoccupied house; its previous occupant, another friend of Kiro's, had been lost to a youkai. Eventually, someone would replace him, but until then, nobody lived there, which made it an excellent meeting spot.

"Yeah," Hoshu said. "It was me and Toshi, and we both know from experience there was no getting close enough so see or hear anything once Kamishirasawa took her inside. She's too careful, and Hinanai's in the village right now, too, so you can bet Kamishirasawa had her keeping watch. We all know she doesn't tolerate it when someone's observing a 'guest' of hers."

"Idiot that she is," Harui said. "Youkai are our enemies. Why she's willing to talk with them at all, much less give them privacy, I'll never know."

"Not every youkai is an enemy of humans," Kiro said. "This 'visitor' was a tengu, and it's been a long time since they've held any hostility towards us."

"A long time since they've shown it, you mean."

"Damn it, Harui," Daichi said, "stop being a caricature already. Even I recognize they're not all our enemies, and I make a living killing them."

"Then you're even more of an idiot. How can someone whose job is to protect us from them possibly think any of them are anything but our enemies?"

"Because I actually do think. Maybe you should try it sometime. Generally more reliable than blind hatred."

"Maybe if _you_ tried it, you'd realize how blinded you are to the truth!"

"You think _I'm_ -"

Kiro cut him off. "Save it, both of you. Hoshu, should I assume you remained as close as you could?"

"Yes. Again, not close enough to hear anything, but we were able to see what direction the tengu flew away in. It looked like she was heading for the temple."

"Interesting," Elise said. "I wonder what business she would have there? The mountain and the temple usually don't have much t do with each other."

"It's concerning, yeah. I can't think of any reason we'd like that someone from the mountain would meet with Hijiri."

"I can't think of one we wouldn't. Hijiri would never harm anyone."

"She's a youkai," Hoshu said. "And not only that, the entire purpose of her temple is to help youkai. Of course her intentions are harmful."

Elise sighed. "She helps youkai and humans. And don't forget that she was once human herself, and cared just as much about humans then as she does about everyone now. She'd never want to harm us."

Now Junpei, silent up to that point, spoke. "That... may not matter. It's the scorpion and the fox."

"The what?" Harui said.

"The scorpion and the fox. A well-known fable. Well, it is on the outside, at least. Guess you all here wouldn't know it."

"That's right," Daichi said, "you're from the outside world."

Junpei nodded. "They don't have youkai out there, but in fiction – children's stories, especially- it's common to portray animals as intelligent, able to think and converse and all that. Still animals, but animals that can be used as characters. The story I just mentioned is one of them."

"And this conversation reminded you of it? How so?"

"The story involves a scorpion that wants to cross a river, but it knows that if it tries to cross, it'll drown. The scorpion sees a fox, walks up, and says, 'Mr. Fox, could you help me cross the river?' The fox says, 'I would be glad to help, but I fear that you would sting me as I carried you across, and I would die.' The scorpion says, 'I would die, too, If I were to do that. I would drown in the river.' So the fox agrees to carry the scorpion across, and sure enough, when they're halfway across, the scorpion stings the fox. 'Why did you do that?' the fox asks. 'Now you will die, too.' And the scorpion says, 'I can't help it. It's my nature.'"

"And it's a youkai's nature to hunt us," Hoshu said. "Yes, you're right. It doesn't matter what Byakuren may want; sooner or later, her nature as a youkai will turn her into our enemy."

"That's one interpretation, I suppose," Kiro said. "I kind of got the opposite idea, that Byakuren's nature is to value everyone and nothing will change that, not even becoming a youkai."

"Oh, come on," Harui said. "That temple is nothing but a danger to all of us."

"Not because of Byakuren. She'll never be a danger to any humans. Her youkai followers may be another story." Of course, Kiro didn't believe those youkai were a danger to humans either, but saying otherwise did serve to calm his wife somewhat.

Sirena had remained silent so far, but now she spoke. "I believe you are correct, Kiro. Any danger from the temple will not come from Byakuren. I don't think it will come from her followers, either. In fact, I doubt there will be any danger from the temple. Our attention should be elsewhere. The forest, for instance, is far more deserving of our attention."

"True," Daichi said. "My sister and I find more of our targets there than anywhere else."

"All I know about the forest," Junpei said, "is that I never want to go there. Outside-world wilderness was dangerous enough; I'd hate to go into any forest where the deadly animals _aren't_ the biggest danger. I'm glad that's not where I showed up upon falling into Gensokyo."

"Misuru landed there," Elise said, "and she was fine. Although I will admit she got lucky, in that the first youkai she met was friendly."

Harui snorted in derision. "'Friendly'. Right. And which 'friendly' youkai did she meet?"

"I believe it was Margatroid, the puppeteer."

"Oh. Well, that's not fair to say. Everyone knows magicians aren't real youkai."

"...You'll have to explain that to me," Junpei said, "because they seem pretty much like youkai as far as I can tell."

"Well, you're from outside, so it's understandable if you don't know, but magician 'youkai' aren't born that way. They have to use magic to alter their bodies. Even those born as magicians aren't _truly_ magicians until they do that."

"Really?"

"More or less," Hoshu said.

"Huh. Wait," Junpei turned back to Harui, "isn't Byakuren a magician, though?"

"Not in that way," Harui said. "She did... something else. I don't know what it was. But she didn't simply change her body with magic like normal magicians. She found some way to turn herself into a youkai. Magicians aren't truly youkai, but she is, and that means she's a danger to all humans."

"Well," Daichi said as he and his sister stood, "we'll have to disagree on that one. Anyways, we're heading home. Have to make sure we're prepared for an early-morning hunt tomorrow; our target tends to show herself only around dawn."

"Good luck," Kiro said.

"Thanks. We'll see you all tomorrow."

Daichi and Elise left, and one by one, the others made their departures. Eventually, only Kiro, Harui, and Sirena were left. "Well," Harui said, "I assume you two have more to talk about, so I'll head back home on my own. Judging by how long your private meetings usually last, I should have a meal ready by the time you get home."

"I appreciate it," Kiro said.

Sirena watched as Harui left. "She's... accommodating. Secure, too; a lot of women wouldn't like their husbands being alone with another woman." She took a step towards him. "Never know what might happen, after all."

"She doesn't care enough to, well, care. She basically sees me only as someone who can provide for her. She has almost no practical skills outside the home, you know."

"And yet you still stay with her."

"Well, I'd hardly say I'm 'staying with her', given our own... activities, but you're right that I do not intend to end my marriage to her. She'd be helpless on her own, and I'm not willing to do that to her." He reached under Sirena's top and ran his hand up her chest. "Even if I do prefer your company."

"Well, if that's the case, then this," Sirena pulled her top off, "is just getting in the way." She reached for Kiro's bottoms. "And so are these. So let's get them off, shall we?"

* * *

 **Given the existence of hate groups such as the KKK and the Westboro Baptist Church, it's in no way surprising that such groups often appear in fiction. The thing is that, even in a fantasy setting, they're generally functionally the same as their real-life counterparts, showing blind hatred and contempt for a group or groups basically just for being even a slight bit different. And, of course, such groups are always unambiguously portrayed as being _wrong_ , which is what almost everyone not a member of them thinks of the real ones. But what if the groups in question differ in more than just skin color or sexual orientation or whatever? What if the hated group is, say, vampires, who have to consume human blood to survive? Or werewolves, who change into wild beasts? In a fantasy setting, there are quite a few reasons that certain races/creatures might _actually_ be dangerous to other people. And yet, I've never seen anti-them groups portrayed in anything but a black-and-white manner. When there's actual danger, actual relevant differences, the situation becomes a lot more complicated. And that's the case here, as youkai often do eat humans. They may be people, but many do still pose a definite, actual danger to humans. Yes, there are rules in place to protect humans (such as limiting attacks to those out in the wilderness at night), but the danger is still very much a real thing. And as such, anti-youkai groups wouldn't be the morally-simple affairs real-life hate groups are, and I wanted to show that. Kiro's group is not blindly anti-youkai; they're just responding to a danger, even if they may not all agree on the extent of that danger (except Harui; she's just blindly hateful, but even in a more nuanced portrayal, people like that do still exist).**

 **Now, I mentioned last chapter that I had no intent to introduce any OCs from the outside world. Obviously, that didn't last, although I will say in my defense that when I said that, I was more thinking of main characters. Also I hadn't decided to have Junpei be from outside at that point in time. So why did I add someone from outside? Well, there are two main reasons. First, apparently people falling through the border isn't all that uncommon (and I've also seen debates on whether or not Yukari contributes to this by gapping humans into the middle of the wilderness for the purpose of feeding youkai), so I felt that having a couple such people among the residents of the human village was sensible. And second, I felt that having Junpei be from outside improved the dynamic of Kiro's group. His perspective is a bit different from theirs, and I think it makes their parts of the story better. That being said, he is still just a supporting character (also he's just an ordinary human, with no abilities of any kind), so you still don't need to worry about any 'Gappy Stu' shit. I hate that as much as most, and would never write any of it.**

 **I'd also like to mention the puzzle Liri's group had to solve. I was trying to make it feel like something out of a video game, and I think I managed, although it was difficult to convey the efforts to understand it and solve it strictly in writing. I think I did well enough, though. Also, I don't think there's any solution other than the one the group found, but I could be wrong, so if you do see another solution, well, just assume that, like me, Liri's group missed it. If the guy who thought it up can miss a solution, then a group trying to solve it certainly can. Also, the spaces, tiles, and right border may not be perfectly aligned; I was limited by this site's tendency to remove certain characters, so I did the best I could with what I had. I think it works more than well enough, though.**

 **Anyways, things are continuing to be interesting even this early in the story, aren't they? In addition to the creatures and everything related to that, there's whatever the hell Liri's group found, Rumia being missing, and the unknown threat Sanae's convinced the creatures' appearance heralds. Not to mention the narrator's... issues (oh, and no, you're not supposed to know who the narrator is yet. It'll become apparent eventually, though). Also Kiro is having an affair, which _totally_ won't be relevant later.**

 **Anyways, I'd love to hear what you thought of the chapter, so please don't hesitate to give reviews. I value any feedback, so I would ask you to please give me some. Thanks, and I hope to see you at the next chapter.**


	4. Chapter 3: Sealed

**Chapter 3  
** _Sealed_

"I have to say," the magician Patchouli Knowledge said to Liri as she met her guest upon said guest's entrance into the Voile Library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, "you've spent an unusual amount of time here over the past week."

"I'm looking into something," Liri said. "I found something the other day – well, okay, it was Tilea, a fairy I know, who actually stumbled upon it – that I can't explain. It gave me a lot of questions, and if I'm going to find the answers anywhere, it's here."

"Tell me about what you found, then. I should be able to point you in the right direction."

"Normally I'd have asked you where to look right away, but I doubt even you know where to find information on something like this. You see, what we found was..."

* * *

"Okay," Cirno said, "we're all here. Dai?"

They were at the Misty Lake, the four of them. Cirno, Daiyousei, Wriggle, and Mystia. Rumia was still absent, which, of course, was what this was about. "We've all seen Rumia at least once over the last week. Wriggle, Mystia, you guys only saw her once, and Cirno, you've seen her a couple times. And so have I." In fact, she'd caught sight of Rumia many times, but saying so would have distracted Cirno, got her wondering why Dai was seeing Rumia so much more when the real question was why Rumia seemed to be avoiding them, or at least avoiding anything but watching them.

"Actually," Wriggle said, "I think I saw her again earlier today, but just like last time, she ran away as soon as I noticed her."

"So she's hiding from us," Mystia said. "Why?"

"Well, let's think. What else was happening when she first went missing?"

"We fought that... thing," Cirno said. "I can see why she'd hide from it, but why would she hide from _us_? Heck, she'd be safer with us, since we already proved we can beat them."

"Something's happening with her," Daiyousei said. "Maybe it's related to those creatures, and maybe it's not, but either way, she doesn't want us involved in it."

"Which makes sense, more or less," Mystia said, "but then why does she seem to be spending so much time watching us?"

"You know what?" Cirno said. "Let's stop wondering and start figuring out how to catch her. Then we can just ask her."

"She clearly doesn't want to talk to us," Wriggle said. "I don't think chasing her down'll be easy."

"Then we just need a plan! There's four of us and one of her, so we can definitely catch her if we have a plan. So we need a plan. Dai?"

"Well," Daiyousei said, "the best bet would be to use our numbers against her. We could try a pincer, come at her from different directions at once. Or we could try the good old chase-her-into-an-ambush trick. Or..."

* * *

Rumia watched from a concealed position as her friends talked. She was too far away to make out what they were saying, but she was pretty sure she knew what they were talking about. She'd been 'missing' for a week now, and she knew they wanted to find her, to know what was going on.

Rumia wanted to go to them, to talk to them, to enjoy herself with them, even just to explain herself to them, but she couldn't. Not when she knew what would soon happen to her. She just couldn't bring herself to do it. It would be too hard, for them but also for her. She knew what was going to happen to her, and although she didn't know exactly when, she knew it would be soon. Very soon. And she didn't know what would become of her afterward. She hoped to be able to return to herself, but she had no idea if this would actually be possible.

Part of her knew it was cowardly of her to hide from her friends, knew that she _should_ tell them what was happening, what was going to happen, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Rumia saw that they looked to be wrapping up their little meeting. Knowing it might be her last chance, she took one last look at each of them, lingering for a longer time on Daiyousei, and then she flew away, careful to remain unseen until she was out of their range of sight.

* * *

"...left a message in case I'm wrong and whoever made the seal comes along."

"Well," Patchouli said after a minute, "I can certainly understand what piqued your curiosity. And... you're certain it wasn't a summoning? That the guardian you faced wasn't summoned from elsewhere?"

"As certain as I can be," Liri said. "There was no summoning element I know, and nothing suggesting a summoning capability. I couldn't tell what the design _was_ meant to do, however, so it _could_ have had a summoning function, but it would also have to have somehow masked the 'call-and-response' effect, because I didn't feel any such thing."

"So either way, it was something unknown."

"Yes."

"Hmm... well, you're correct that there's little aid I can give in terms of finding information on such a thing. I know not of it myself. All I can tell you is that your best bet is the east wing. I keep the more... unusual tomes there."

"Dangerous ones."

"Many of them are, yes, at least if one were to foolishly attempt what's described within. None of the tomes themselves have any autonomous capability. Some do have power, but not any way to release it themselves."

"Could still be a possession risk, though."

"Yes, but you know how to protect yourself from such a thing. Aside from those tomes, the east wing is also where I keep the more esoteric texts. Unusual ones, ones I have had little reason to use and thus have little knowledge of. Also there are those texts I have so far been unable to decipher."

"I doubt those will tell me anything," Liri said. "If you have been unable to decipher them, I doubt I will be able to."

"Except that you have seen things I have not. You may find an image you recognize. And if you do find something in one of those texts, I would be more than willing to assist you in attempting to decipher it."

"Thank you for the offer. I'll let you know if I do find something."

It was then that Patchouli's demon familiar, Koakuma, appeared seemingly from nowhere. "Lady Patchouli, I hope I'm not interrupting, but you have a visitor. _Another_ visitor," she added upon sight of Liri. "And not another magician."

"Unusual for anyone else to have any interest in this place," Patchouli said. "Who is it?"

"Sanae Kochiya, the maiden of the Moriya Shrine. And she's here not to visit the library, but to speak to you."

"Very well, then. Bring her here."

"Sure thing."

Koakuma flew off, and Patchouli turned back to Liri. "It seems there is another matter requiring my attention. I know you'll treat the tomes properly, and I know you won't take anything without my permission, so feel free to search the library at your leisure."

"Thank you," Liri said, and left Patchouli to meet the new guest, heading into the east wing to continue her search.

* * *

 _Liri Takoru. A magician of the forest, and one of the key players in what was to come._

 _Many magicians specialize in a certain variety of magic. Patchouli Knowledge, for example, specializes in elemental magic, whereas Byakuren Hijiri's specialty is enhancement. Of course, these magicians do usually have a fair knowledge of magic in general; they're simply better in one specific area. Research and magical development are common for magicians, and focusing on a single area is more effective. Liri is one of these who has an area of specialty, and her specialty is unusual. She focuses on magical/physical integration; that is, combining the magical with the physical._

 _Liri's integration is similar to, but different from, enhancement magic. Enhancement magic such as Byakuren's involves using magic to strengthen physical aspects, while integration involves combining the two into one, which has many different potential effects. With enhancement, the additional effects are bestowed by the magic, but Liri's integration actually alters the target such that it has the additional effects itself. She's even able, to an extent, to do this to herself._

 _I first met Liri during the events I'm writing about here, and it was not a friendly encounter. In fact, she attacked me, although I will admit that she was not unprovoked. I said before that my role in the events was unpleasant, and it was that role which brought us into conflict. And it was during that conflict that I learned the truth, for she is the one who revealed it to me. She was one of those who had learned the truth, and she placed me among their number. And like the rest of us, I will, because of learning this truth, never be the same._

 _You still think you know, don't you? What the threat was, who the enemy was. I told you before that if you think you know, you are wrong, but did you really listen? I doubt it. You do think you know, I expect. You know little, but think you know more. You have expectations, and draw conclusions that meet them. See evidence to support them. Find reasons to keep to them. So I will tell you again: don't hold to your expectations. Don't commit yourself to what you think is going to happen. Because, as I said before, if you do believe you know, then you are wrong._

* * *

"Okay," Liora said, "connections on my end are good."

"Alright," Nitori said, "last reading... green. Ready to go."

Both kappa backed away to a safe distance. Nitori had added a remote activation feature to the system, allowing her to turn it on from a safe distance. After the first test, neither of them had made the mistake of standing to close to any part of the system again.

"Okay," Nitori said, "activating in three... two... one... now." She hit a button on her control unit, and the system came online. "Everything's stable so far," she said, studying the readout on her unit's screen.

Liora had a similar unit, though in her case the monitoring function was focused purely on the optical components of the system. "Camera pods ready Initiating recording in three... two... one... now." She hit a button on her unit, and the camera pods came online. "Pods active. Checking feed." She hit another button, and the display switched to the feed from one of the cameras. She cycled quickly through each pod, then returned to the main diagnostics display. "Feed's good."

"Feed processing good," Nitori said. "Extrapolation active. Ready for projection."

Liora switched her diagnostic display to the projectors. "Projectors receiving feed. Bringing online in three... two... one... now." She brought them online, and the projector ring and everything in it seemed to shimmer and distort, and then in vanished.

For ten seconds.

"Shit," Nitori said as the system shut down. "We're still getting too much feedback, overloading the relays." She'd rewired and made other changes to the system several times, improving the situation each time, but although this had been the best attempt yet, the full load was still too much.

"Cameras and projectors were within tolerances," Liora said.

"Yeah, we just have too many nodes, too many individual parts that all need power at the same time. That wouldn't be a problem if we were only going to use the system at our village or the tengu's, since we have energy feed from the underground reactor, but the system needs to be useable elsewhere."

"It's not an issue of using too much power, though, right? That generator of yours has plenty to spare."

"Of course it's not about that, Liora," Nitori said. "I know you're not as good at this stuff as me, but I still thought it'd be obvious. No, the problem is the relays. Even after making the setup as good as possible, there's still just too many individual units per relay with too much of an energy requirement – those projectors aren't low on the power use, after all. It's overloading the relays, and I can't just add more relays, because then the generator would have the same problem. And trying to stack relays would be even worse. And even that's just at this scale. At full scale, there's no hope it'll ever work. Damn it, I'm going to have to scrap the whole design, come up with a multi-generator system. It'll have to be modular, too, able to add additional units as needed to allow for areas of differing sizes."

"Or we can just modify the generator so it can handle the load."

Nitori was silent for a moment. "...Or we can modify the generator." A pause. "But the only generator components that can handle the kind of load we'll be dealing with at full scale are... are all at the underground reactor."

"Yeah," Liora said, "I guess we do need to think about the full-scale system."

"Yeah. Anything they have at the reactor could handle any load we'll need it to, but, well, those things take a long time to make, and we'll need a set for each system we set up. We'd be looking at at least a week before we get the first one, and we couldn't move forward with testing until we have it. And then another week for each additional system we want to set up. I don't think the shrine'll be happy with that."

"Then the shrine'll authorize us to take some extras from the underground plant. They do have extras, right?"

Nitori nodded. "About a dozen spares."

"Then we find someone to start production immediately, and-"

"Tias," Nitori said. "She'd be the best choice."

"...Tias, then. We get her to start production, and in the meantime use spares from the plant."

"...Fine, that works."

 _Not too happy that I came up with the solution, are you, Nitori? Seriously, get over that arrogance of yours already._ "All right, then. I'll-"

Nitori cut her off. "I'll go update the shrine, then. You gather up the equipment and go talk to Tias." And then, before Liora could say anything, she was gone.

* * *

Liri didn't have much time to search before Koakuma appeared. "Miss Takoru, Lady Patchouli asked me to come get you."

"Oh? I thought she'd told me all she could. And she's with a guest, too, isn't she? Or is Sanae gone already?"

"Actually, Patchy thinks you and Sanae can help each other. Turns out Sanae thinks there's something locked behind some manner of seal, and apparently the sort of seal she described sounds a lot like the one you described to Patchy."

 _That's... unexpected._ "I see. In that case, lead the way."

Liri followed Koakuma through the library until they reached Patchouli's desk at the center. She was seated at it, and Sanae was seated in front of it. "Ah, there you are," Patchouli said. "Lady Kochiya, this is Liri Takoru. Liri, Sanae Kochiya."

Sanae got to her feet to greet Liri. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," Liri said. As Sanae returned to her seat, Liri sat down herself, a chair appearing as if from nowhere as she did. "I understand Patchouli thinks I can help you with something."

"I do," Patchouli said. "Sanae here believes that a series of seals exist somewhere in Gensokyo, keeping something locked away."

"Seals. Well, then, Sanae, why don't you tell me what you told Patchouli."

"Of course," Sanae said. ""I don't actually know for sure what form these seals will take, but there are a few things that can be expected. First of all, the seals won't be just lying around. Each will be within a specific location. There may be some manner of barriers blocking entry to each of these places, but if so, they wouldn't be difficult to remove.

"Each of the seals will likely be protected by at least two different security measures. One is a puzzle of some sort that must be solved in order to reach the seal. The other is a guardian, some manner of creature that protects the seal. And then there's the seal itself. It would have to be a very strong one, though I would expect it to be weakened now. There may also be an aura of evil around it, something you couldn't approach the seal without feeling."

Liri was silent for a moment. "...Well, that's... uncanny."

"Patchouli said you might know what I was talking about."

"A week ago, a friend of mind found an odd cave, and roped me and another friend into exploring it with her. The cave entrance was blocked by a barrier that was heavily decayed and thus easy to remove. When we entered, a creature appeared and attacked us. Our way was blocked until we solved an odd puzzle. And when we reached the object at the center, there was a strong unpleasant feeling centered around an object surrounded by magic runes."

"You found one," Sanae said. "And... you broke the seal, didn't you?"

"Actually, we decided to leave it alone. We didn't know what it was, but we all felt that doing anything would be a bad idea."

"Ah," Sanae said. "Well, it won't matter in the end, but still, that was smart of you. Where did you find this place?"

"It was in a cave near the lake. I can show you where, if you want, but I'm afraid I don't actually know anything about it. That's why I'm here, actually."

"Oh? Well, that's... convenient. I don't suppose I could ask you to share with me anything you find?"

Liri nodded. "Certainly, as long as you're willing to do the same."

"That won't be a problem. Although if you're looking into it here, I'll probably direct my own efforts elsewhere. There's a chance I might be able to find something useful in the Heida records."

"I doubt it, unless some event relating to these seals happened in the past."

"I have reason to believe just that."

"Well, then I hope your search is successful. I believe Keine currently has them, so you'll need to go to her. And if you'll be visiting her to examine the records, then I can leave any information I discover with her."

"That works. As for me getting anything I discover to you, well, you'll be spending your time here, so, Patchouli, would it be acceptable for me to leave anything I find with you?"

"Myself or Koakuma, yes," Patchouli said.

"In that case," Sanae said as she got to her feet, "I'll be off. Thank you for the help, both of you."

"You're welcome," the two magicians said, and Sanae nodded back in acknowledgment as she made her way out of the library.

Liri got to her feet, as well. "Well, then. I guess I'll get back to my own search."

"I'll leave you to it," Patchouli said.

* * *

Liora set down the last of the equipment in her shop's storage room and turned to leave, but as she did, something caught her eye. A recorder, set on the small table next to the door. She walked over to it and picked it up. _Huh._

The recorder struck her as odd, though it took her a few seconds to figure out why. As she thought about it, she remembered recording a message and leaving the recorder on the table, but she couldn't remember what she'd actually said in the message, and though she recalled making it, she couldn't for the life of her remember actually deciding to make it.

Liora played the recording back, but that only added to her confusion. _Why the hell did I make this?_

She contemplated the recorder and the message it contained. _Well,I guess I'll just delete it._

And then she set the recorder back down on the table and left the room.

* * *

Once again, Keine found herself emerging from her house to greet a visitor. There was no 'escort' for this visitor, however. Though she lived on the mountain, she had been to the village often enough that she was fairly well-known. Besides, she was still at least partly human, and her non-human aspect was not youkai but divine.

"Lady Kochiya," Keine said. "I wasn't expecting you. Please, come in."

"Thank you," Sanae said as she stepped inside. Keine offered her a seat, which she took as Keine sat herself down on another seat. "You have that celestial living with you, right? Tenshi, I think her name is?"

"Sometimes," Keine said. "She gets dragged back to heaven more often than I would like. She's there now, but she's supposed to be back today. Anyways, what brings you here today?"

"First," Sanae said, "I assume you met with the tengu scout who was sent here."

"I did," Keine said. "At my advice, she's residing the the Myouren Temple while she undertakes her mission here. Some of the visitors would have been... unhappy were a youkai to be staying in the village."

"Sounds smart, but I'm not actually here to talk about her. How much did she tell you about her mission?"

"She gave me the basics of your 'condition blue' and what her role was in it."

"Then you know I believe Gensokyo to be in danger."

Keine nodded. "I'm not sure why you believe that, though."

"Because something was found on the mountain a few days ago. Creatures. Unnatural creatures, the likes of which haven't been seen in Gensokyo. So far, it's just been isolated sightings, usually of no more than two or three at a time, but I expect this to change. Their numbers will increase, and then the being responsible for their existence will appear."

"The 'being responsible for their existence'? What do you mean?"

"Exactly that," Sanae said. "The creatures are spawned through the power of some manner of evil being, and if left unchecked, it and its creatures will overrun and destroy Gensokyo."

Keine was silent for a moment. "That's... a dire prediction. I have to wonder why you expect this to happen, though. And what sort of 'being' are you talking about?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. That's why I'm here, actually. I know the Child of Miare is not currently alive, but her records are available, right?"

"They are. And you think this... 'being' of yours will be mentioned in them?"

"Probably not directly, but there may well be some pieces of information in there. Most likely something relating to when it was sealed away."

"...Sealed away?"

Sanae nodded. "This being will have threatened the world before, and been defeated but not destroyed. Those who faced it before will have been unable to destroy it, and thus have had no choice but to seal it."

"That seems... very specific. Where are you getting this information?"

"Actually, it's knowledge from my time living in the outside world."

"The outside world? The outside world has no knowledge of magic and other such things. Those things are confined to legend there. Our reality is their fantasy."

"Exactly," Sanae said. "That's how I know what's going to happen. Because it happens in the outside world's fantasy."

"Hmm... well, I suppose such a thing is possible. But... if you have this knowledge from stories from the outside, why is it so incomplete? You know that this being was fought before and sealed away, but not what it is? I have to admit, that seems... odd."

"It's because the different stories, well, differ. What I've mentioned so far are things the various stories all tend to have in common. But on other topics, such as the nature of the evil being, they vary wildly. That's why I'm looking for information about it, to get some idea of its nature."

"Assuming it even exists."

"Assuming it even exists. Although I have little doubt that it does."

"Well," Keine said, "whether or not you're correct, there's certainly no harm in allowing you to look through the Heida records. I have them stored here until the Child is born again. I'll show you where. Although I should warn you that if you don't have any way to narrow down what you're looking for, it may take a while. The records are... extensive."

"I actually do have a way to narrow it down," Sanae said. "I may not really know _what_ to look for, but I do know _when_ to look. The previous encounter with the being in question will have happened exactly a thousand years ago."

"You'll need the earlier records, then. Here, let me show you where they are."

* * *

"...never seems to leave the library these days, and Akora never wants to do anything, and Cirno won't stop looking for Rumia, and all my friends are doing other things and I'm bored and-"

"For shit's sake, Tilea," Alranue said, "shut up! We get it! Nobody else wants to play with you, so you came to bother me and 'Sia."

"But I wanna play, and everyone's busy, and-"

"We're in the middle of something, too. Maybe later."

"But I'm bored noooooow. What are you two doing it looks fun can I play?"

Alraune sighed. "We're not 'playing', Til. I'm helping my sister learn-"

Rafflesia cut in. "You know, if she want to participate, maybe we should let her. I mean, we _were_ just trying to figure out what to use as a moving target."

"That's... a good idea, actually." Alraune turned to Tilea. "I'm helping my sister improve her ability. 'Sia's not at my level, but she'd like to get there. I've been teaching her some new tricks, but she's ready for a moving target, and we don't really have a good one of those. Usually we just ask Liri to magic one up for us, but like you said, she's focused exclusively on her research right now. Think you could stand in?"

"Of course!" Tilea said. "I can do anything any other target can _wait_ a minute. You just want to kill me so I'll leave you alone for a bit, don't you?"

"I'll be aiming to restrain," Rafflesia said, "not kill."

"Oh, okay." Tilea moved a fair distance from the two plant youkai. "All right, I'm ready! Wait, am I allowed to fly?"

"Anyone I'm aiming at for real would be."

"So..."

"That's a 'yes', 'Til," Alraune said.

"Got it!" Tilea took to the air and began flying around erratically. "Bring it on, 'Sia! You'll never hit me!"

Refflesia took to the air herself, rising higher than Tilea. She flew above the fairy and fired danmaku blasts from above. Tilea avoided the leaf-shaped bullets easily, but they were aimed such that Tilea's evasion drove her further towards the ground.

Without warning, vines burst forth from the ground beneath Tilea, and though she was quick to react, she wasn't quick enough, and one of them grabbed her around the leg. She tried to free herself, but other vines wrapped around her other leg and her arms, and they pulled her down to the ground.

Refflesia landed next to Tilea, Alraune joining her. "You know, maybe she wasn't the best target. Too easy to trick."

"Not fair!" Tilea said. "You told me you were doing something new! This isn't new!"

"It is from the air," Alraune said. "It's easy to call up all sorts of plant stuff when you're in contact with the ground, but having to reach through the air is much harder. She's gotten good at doing it, but being able to do something isn't the same as being able to _use_ it very well. Nobody she'd be aiming for would just let her hit them, you know."

"Well, good, great. Now could you please _let me go already_?"

"Hey," Rafflesia said, "you're the one who wanted to participate."

"Yeah, but you've already got me! Now let me go so we can do it again!"

Refflesia released the vines, which withdrew into the ground and, having been called into being by her power, faded back out of being. "Ah, so you're up for more, then?"

Tilea leapt to her feet and rose into the air again. "Of course I am! And don't think it'll be so easy next time! I know what you're up to now! You won't trick me again!"

"We'll see about that," Rafflesia said. _And, hell, maybe she's right. But that was hardly the only trick I've been working on, so if she thinks she knows what's coming, she's in for a surprise._ "Let's go."

"Bring it on!"

* * *

Keine had been kind enough to allow Sanae the use of her study, and the divine maiden was looking through the records Keine had shown her when someone flung the front door open and dashed into the house. "Keine! Keine, where are you? We've got incoming!"

Sanae caught a glimpse of the visitor through the open door to the study, and noticed that it was a tengu. She immediately realized this was the scout dispatched to the human village, and that her sudden, urgent arrival could mean only one thing. She ran out into the main room at the same time as Keine came in from the other side. "Karis," Keine said. "What's wrong?"

"The enemy is approaching," Karis said. "The creatures I told you about. There's a group heading for the village from the north, about a couple dozen of them."

"You're sure?" Sanae said. "They've only been seen in groups of three or four at most."

Karis spun around in surprise. "Lady Kochiya?! I- I- um-" She shook her head quickly. "I'm sorry. I... I apologize; I did not know you were here."

Sanae suppressed the urge to giggle at the tengu's flustered reaction. "I have some business of my own here. I expect to be visiting Keine regularly over the next few days. I'll need you to remain on station, though, of course. But that's not important right now. You're certain it was the Twisted?"

"'Twisted'? Is that what we're calling them? Well, from what I've seen, that name does fit. And yes, I'm sure it was them. What do we do?"

"My presence here does not change your orders. Act as your instructions say."

"Right." Karis turned back to Keine. "Okay, we've got about a couple dozen of these 'Twisted' on the way. Do you think we can handle them ourselves, or do I need to call for help?"

"Hmm... well," Keine said, "it's hard to say. I don't know how strong of an opponent these creatures are. Sanae, you said your people have been encountering them over the past week; should I assume you know at least something about their capabilities?"

Sanae nodded. "Less than I'd like, but some. I... I don't really know how well you'd fare against that many of them. Or 'we', rather; I intend to fight with you."

"Thank you. But you're still not sure if we'll be enough?"

"I'm not. I just don't know."

"You said to follow my orders," Karis said. "In this situation, they instruct me to call in for aid."

"I know," Sanae said, "but if the response force is responding to one call, they can't respond to another. I'd rather they not be called in unless we know it's necessary."

"That thought occurred to me as well. The risk of not calling in is that we fail to fight the creatures off, but the risk of calling in is that the response force will be unavailable elsewhere while they respond."

"Yeah. But... well, we may not know if we need help, but we do know this attack is happening right now. In fact, that's really all we know. I don't want the relief force to be called in unless it's truly needed, but at the same time, I don't want to risk losing here. I... I just don't know."

"...Then in the absence of further instruction from you," Karis said, "I shall act as my standing orders specify and call in for aid."

"Actually," Keine said, "I have a better idea. Sanae, you're with me. We're heading out to confront the creatures. Karis, get back to the temple. Tell them the village is under attack. Byakuren will certainly send aid."

"That is a good idea," Sanae said. "Karis, do as she said. And hurry."

"Understood."

As Karis ran out the door, Keine turned to Sanae. "All right, I'll sound the alert, then we'll head out and intercept the creatures. Let's go!"

* * *

The sound was unmistakable. The bell in the village had been magically modified, allowing it to produce a variety of sounds, as well as to, if needed, be clearly heard by everyone in not just the village but the farm fields outside of it. And this particular sound had one meaning and one meaning only: the village was under attack. And the pattern of the rings carried a meaning of its own, that of which direction the attack was coming from.

"Enemies from the north," Hoshu said to himself. The field he was working was west of the village, but he was on the northern end of it, and when he looked , he could indeed see... something approaching the village. "Moving oddly slow for youkai, though. And why are they on the ground? Huh."

Hoshu made his decision. The attackers were coming from the north, and seemed to be heading straight for the village. "I'm probably in less danger staying out here." And so he did, and he knew that most of the others were probably doing the same. True, most of them wouldn't be positioned to see the attackers, but that very fact would mean the attackers were nowhere near them. No, they'd know it was safer right now to stay in the fields, away from any fighting.

Hoshu turned away to get back to work, but then he noticed something in the woods just west of the western fields he was in. Some _one_ , rather. "Is that a... person?" Whoever it was wasn't watching him, though, but rather looking north, standing among the trees as she watched the attackers approach the village.

Hoshu dropped to the ground, hiding himself within the grains he was tending to. True, the youkai – and it _had_ to be a youkai – seemed interested only in the attackers, but he didn't want to risk drawing its attention to him. So he stayed on the ground, waiting until the danger passed.

* * *

"There they are," Keine said.

The pair landed in the creatures' path. "All right," Sanae said, "I can keep them back; Lady Yasaka's divine wind will keep them away from the village. I don't know what your combat ability is, but engage them as best you can. And be careful; we still don't have a very complete idea of their capabilities."

"Sounds good," Keine said, and took to the air.

Sanae faced the creatures, holding her gohei out in front of her. The snake ornament in her hair glowed slightly, and she felt Kanako's divine aura surrounding her. She brought the gohei down in a single motion, and the wind came.

Keine fired on the creatures from above as they struggled against the wind. Their advance slowed, then halted, then many of the creatures started getting blown back. Some, however, especially those which had additional legs or other means of more effectively bracing themselves, were able to keep struggling against the wind. And some of the others...

 _That's not good,_ Sanae thought as she noticed some of the Twisted rising into the air. _I can't keep them all back if some can fly. I'll just have to hope Keine's up to dealing with them._

Keine wasn't happy with this newly revealed ability, either. _Damn, they can fly? That's not good. Sanae won't be able to keep them all back if they can spread out in the air. Okay, looks like they're not all flying, though. Maybe only some of them can. Of course, that's bad enough; I don't know if I can handle that many at once._ But then, she didn't actually have to kill them. _I just have to hold them off until help arrives._

Keine flew at the nearest Twisted, sword in hand. She used to be... somewhat less than skilled in combat, though with enough power to handle most youkai that strayed near the village. Since her relationship with Tenshi began, though, the Celestial had been training her, and her combat ability had improved significantly. She still wasn't close to Tenshi's level, but she was much better than she used to be. _I just hope I'm good enough._

Sanae saw Keine engage the airborne Twisted, but she couldn't offer any aid. Right now, her best move was to keep the land-bound Twisted at bay, and she couldn't come to Keine's assistance while doing so. So she kept Kanako's wind blowing, hoping that Keine was up to the challenge.

Keine cut through one of the creatures, then shot above another and kicked it downwards. Another came at her, but she ducked below it and cut into it as it passed over her. Two came in and struck, and she evaded their attacks, but before she could retaliate, another came at her, forcing her to evade its strike.

Keine prioritized evasion over attack. The flying Twisted all seemed to be focusing on her rather than heading for the village, which meant all she had to do was survive, but that assumed none of them changed their minds. And, indeed, after blasting one down into the ground, she saw it seem to completely forget she was there and resume course for the village. Keine flew at it, but others got in her way and attacked, forcing her to evade. She managed to dodge past them, but the creatures were following her, and she knew focusing on the one made her more vulnerable to an attack from behind. But she had to evade them as best she could, because the one heading for the village _had_ to be stopped.

And then something crashed into the lone Twisted from above, slamming it into the ground and crushing it. The lone figure riding the rock down leapt into the air and joined Keine as she re-engaged the other Twisted. "Well, this looks fun."

"Tenshi," Keine said. "Am I ever glad you're here." She evaded an attack and cut through the attacker. "This is getting difficult."

Tenshi flew right into a group of Twisted, spinning around with her sword out and slicing through them repeatedly. "Happy to help. What's the plan?"

"Eliminate them if we can, but help from the temple should be coming soon."

"Works for me," Tenshi said. "Let's kick some ass."

Sanae saw Tenshi join Keine in battle. _That's fortunate. They should be able to handle the fliers until help arrives._

Tenshi ducked around a Twisted's attack and cut through it. It jerked back, giving Tenshi an opportunity to slash through it again. Keine came at another one from below and cut it vertically, which was enough to finish it off.

[BGM = /watch?v=Q]Yqd2hFKFcI]

Sanae noticed something happening to one of the Twisted struggling against the wind. It was particularly misshapen, with one arm and multiple legs, but as she watched, its form shifted, becoming more human-like. And then it took to the air. _What the- they can change themselves? Wait, but then why haven't the others done it? Can only that one do it? And if so, why?_

Tenshi had barely enough time to react as the changed Twisted came rushing at her from below. She managed to evade, but the Twisted quickly turned around and came at her again. This one was truly human-shaped, without any of the twisted features that had inspired the name 'Twisted', and it wielded a sword. "This one's nasty!" she called out to Keine. "I'll have to leave the rest to you!"

 _Great,_ Keine thought as Tenshi flew up to engage the unusual Twisted. _Back to how it was before, then. At least we took out a few of them, so it should be a little easier._

Sanae's thoughts were interrupted by Karis landing next to her. "Byakuren's on the way. She'll be here soon, but I'm faster, so I came ahead to help."

"Good," Sanae said. "Go help Keine. Tenshi showed up, but it looks like she's occupied, and I can keep these ones at bay as long as I need to, so Keine needs help the most."

"Got it."

Keine weaved her way through the Twisted's attacks, striking when she could but prioritizing survival. And then several were knocked away by a blast of wind as Karis joined the fight, rapidly slicing through the nearest one with her fans. "Byakuren's on the way!"

"Good," Keine said. "Tenshi's here, too, but she's busy, so help me with these!"

"Already on it," Karis said as she targeted another enemy.

Tenshi came at her opponent aggressively, but it was far quicker than any of the other Twisted, and matched her strike-for-strike. She mixed in some energy blasts, but the creature proved itself just as adept at evasion, dodging Tenshi's attacks as it returned fire with its own shadowy blasts.

And then Byakuren Hijiri slammed into it from the side, sending it flying.

Sanae saw Byakuren's arrival, and the magician wasn't alone. Nue was with her, and while Byakuren aided Tenshi, Nue turned her attention to the Twisted still struggling against the wind, bombarding them from above with a level of power Sanae knew she couldn't match, the same power she remembered from her own battle with Nue over fifty years ago.

Byakuren flew up beside Tenshi as the unusual Twisted recovered from her strike. "Looks like we made it in time."

"More help," Tenshi said. "I'm glad to see you. You come alone?"

"Nue's here, too. She's helping Lady Kochiya, and Keine and Karis seem to have their fight under control as well. You looked like you could use my aid more than them."

"I hate so say it," Tenshi said, "but you're right; I could use the help. This one's nasty, but I doubt it'll be a match for both of us."

"Then I shall stand against it alongside you."

"Thanks. Okay, here it comes. Let's do this!"

The creature flew in, and Tenshi met its charge. It came in aggressively, but Tenshi blocked its strikes. And then it had to dodge as Byakuren came in and took a swing at it. It spun to the side and slashed, but Byakuren stopped the strike with her arm, her enhancement magic allowing it to block as well as any shield. Then she punched it in the face, and as her offensive capabilities were strengthened just as much as her defensive ones, the hit sent it flying backwards.

Tenshi came in again, but was forced to block as the creature struck at her. And then it hit her with an energy blast, knocking her backwards quite a ways. Then it turned its attention back to Byakuren, but while it was every bit as quick as Tenshi, Byakuren was quicker, and her enchanted scroll was just as effective as any 'normal' weapon. And she wielded it expertly, weaving its magic into her own and using it in ways that would, to an outsider, look impossible. With the scroll's magic interwoven with hers, it and Byakuren were effectively no longer separate objects. While their magic was woven together like it was, it was effectively part of her, its magic and hers being made one and the same. Whenever the creature struck, the scroll was there to block it, or deflect it, and Byakuren moved fluidly from defense to offense, striking whenever there was an opening, even if the opening seemed too small to use.

Byakuren was doing quite well against the creature on her own, but Tenshi still wasn't going to leave her to face it solo. She came in from the side, striking successfully just as it blocked an attack from Byakuren. It evaded Tenshi's next strike, but then Byakuren slashed through it again. It tried to back away and attack from a distance, but Byakuren kept after it, not giving it the chance, and Tenshi was right beside her.

As the number of Twisted facing Sanae dwindled, thanks to Nue, she ended the wind and added her own efforts to the attack. She may not have been at Nue's level, but she was still quite capable, and between the two of them, all of their targets were soon eliminated. Keine and Karis, in the sky above them, were doing similarly well; by the time Sanae and Nue joined them, only a couple Twisted were left, and those didn't last long.

Byakuren evaded an attack from her opponent and struck it from above, sending it hurtling into the ground. And then Tenshi slammed down on top of it, cutting through it vertically as it tried to stand, and it fell back to the ground.

[End BGM]

As Byakuren landed next to Tenshi, the creature slowly, weakly, raised its head to look at them. And then it spoke. "Your 'victory' is meaningless," it said in a deep and raspy voice that was unmistakably feminine. "You _will_ fall. It is only a matter of time."

Tenshi stepped over to it. "Oh? And what, exactly, gives you that idea?"

"It is inevitable. You cannot long resist me."

"What, you think we're actually going to let you leave? You're dead. And even if you did escape, we'd beat you next time just like we did here."

The creature laughed. "You have yet to face me. You have defeated only empty shells, thoughtless monsters of my creation. Even this form is only acting as a vessel. You have defeated only a shell, a mere shadow of my power. You are capable of holding be back only for now, while the seals remain. But as they weaken, and my freedom comes ever closer, you will not be able to escape your end. Even Prince Shotoku could only seal me away, and such a thing will not work again. Soon I, Mephilia, will be free, and then your end will be upon you." And then the creature fell to the ground and, like other Twisted, disappeared.

Tenshi and Byakuren stood there for a moment, until they were joined by the others. "Looks like we won," Karis said. "Byakuren, Nue, thanks for the help."

"Of course," Nue said. And then, "Um, Byakuren?"

"Sorry," Byakuren said. "I was just thinking about what that creature said."

"Wait," Sanae said, "it spoke?"

Byakuren nodded, and repeated to them the creature's words. Then Sanae nodded. "Yes, that fits with what I've been expecting. And we have a name now, That should make my research easier."

"Maybe easier than you realize," Keine said. "Byakuren, Tenshi, are you sure it said it was sealed by Prince Shotoku?"

"Absolutely," Tenshi said. "Why? Do you know something about that time?"

"A decent amount, and nothing I know involves any seal, or any overt magical activity at all. Shotoku kept those activities secret."

"What about the records?" Sanae asked. "Would the Heida records have anything?"

"They might. The Child of Miare has always been focused on Gensokyo, even before its separation, but there may be something. But there's no need to look for clues in those or any other records. If we want information on what happened between this 'Mephilia' and Prince Shotoku, there is a far better source. After all, why look for records of that time when we can ask Toyosatomimi no Miko herself?"

* * *

"You saw someone," Kiro said. "Are you sure?"

Hoshu nodded. "I couldn't make her out very well – she was too far away – but she was definitely there."

Hoshu had come to see Kiro as soon as the attack was over. As he'd been at home, Harui was also there, but right now it was just the three of them. "A youkai, obviously," Harui said. "You said it was just watching?"

"That's right," Hoshu said. "She was just standing there, watching the battle. I was too far away to see it, but youkai have better senses, so she probably could have."

"That's... odd," Kiro said.

Harui scoffed at her husband. "'Odd'? Hardly. Clearly this youkai is behind the attack."

"No," Junpei said as he walked in. "I was on watch when it happened, and... I don't know what the hell those things were, but they weren't youkai. And, yes, I'm aware I haven't been in this world for too long, but I'm still sure."

"Well, then they were clearly made by a youkai."

"I guess I can't say either way on that one."

"You're making a lot of assumptions here," Kiro said. "First of all, let's try to get confirmation that someone was there. Let's see if anyone else saw her."

Sirena entered at that precise moment. "I did."

"You saw her, too?"

Sirena nodded. "I was in the western fields today, too. I wasn't as close as Hoshu, but I'm pretty sure I saw someone in the woods. I don't think anyone else was in the right spot to see anything, though. I was only barely able to see her myself, and I don't think anyone but Hoshu was closer."

"All right, then. So there probably was someone there, but neither of you saw her doing anything but watching, right?"

"So what?" Hoshu said. "Why else would a youkai have been observing such an attack? Hell, what other reason would a youkai have to be there during the attack in the first place?"

Now it was Daichi's turn to enter. "Well, Byakuren was there to help us."

Kiro suppressed a chuckle. _How is it that everyone's arriving at the exact right point in the conversation?_ "You saw the fight?"

"I found a vantage point to watch from, and I saw Byakuren and one of her people join the fight. And that tengu who's been staying at the temple, too."

Harui gave a derisive laugh. "And you really think they're on our side? They're clearly trying to gain our trust before they kill us all."

Kiro ignored his wife. "Well, the important thing is to figure out if this woman Hoshu and Sirena saw was in fact involved in the attack."

"Maybe we should tell Keine about her," Junpei said.

"Oh, like she'd care," Harui said. "A youkai-lover like her? She'd try to tell us it was nothing."

"I doubt that," Kiro said, "but she'd probably pay little attention. I mean, all we know is that someone was probably watching the fight. If we want to figure out who this person was, we'll have to look on our own. I'll leave that to you and your sister, Daichi. You two hear more about youkai than the rest of us. Don't abandon your usual hunting, but if you hear anything that might be relevant let us know."

"Of course," Daichi said. "If we hear anything, you'll be the first to know."

"Good to know," Kiro said.

* * *

Keine wasn't really sure what, exactly, Senkai was. Toyosatomimi no Miko had created it from the space within the various cracks that existed within pretty much everything. Keine didn't understand what that meant, but Miko had shown her how to get there by passing through a crack in the earth. Senkai served as the residence of Miko had her people, and was also a place where humans could train to become hermits (although almost none succeeded). This, in fact, was why Keine'd been taught how to access it; people would be unlikely to discover it on their own, so Keine had agreed to take aspiring hermits there herself. Now, however, she had business of her own there. Byakuren, Nue, and Karis had returned to the temple, but Tenshi and Sanae were still with her. They stood outside the Divine Spirit Mausoleum, Miko's temple, where Miko had met them.

"And this 'Mephilia' said I was the one who sealed it?" Miko said.

Keine nodded. "Prince Shotoku, to be specific."

"Well, that is me, but I don't believe I did any such thing."

"Think back," Sanae said. "It would've been a thousand years ago, almost exactly."

"A thousand years," Miko said. "Did it say that, too?"

"No," Tenshi said. "Only that you sealed it. Sanae's the one who came up with the 'thousand year' timeframe."

"It's always a thousand years," Sanae said. "Every time."

Miok didn't ask what Sanae meant by that statement. "Well, then I can assure you it wasn't me that performed the sealing, as I sealed myself away one thousand _five hundred_ years ago."

"That's... really?"

"Yes."

Sanae started muttering to herself. "Then... why did... hmm. I... guess it was lying, but I didn't think that happened. So why..." Then, aloud, "Well, I guess that concludes my business here. When it said you were the one who'd sealed it, I was hoping we'd caught a lucky break, but I guess I'll have to figure out what happened a thousand years ago the hard way after all."

"It may not be that hard," Miko said. "There are quite a few youkai who've been alive that long. Just ask some of them about it."

"I'm afraid it's not quite that easy." And then Sanae started muttering again. "although there often is _someone_ who remembers the first time. Someone who'd be living by herself, isolated somewhere. Someone... well, someone living here, but we already ruled that out. Another hermit, though? Hmm..." Then aloud again. "Well, maybe that is something to go on. Either way, I thank you for your time, and I shall take my leave."

Miko watched as Sanae walked a short distance from the temple and exited Senkai from the same spot she'd arrived. "What was she talking about?"

"She believes that events in Gensokyo are progressing in a manner consistent with fiction from the outside world," Keine said. "A not unreasonable theory, actually, given that Gensokyo exists as the fantasy to their 'reality'."

"That's why she thinks this 'Mephilia' was sealed a thousand years ago? Because that's how it happens in the outside world's stories?"

"That's right."

"Hmm... but then why would the creature have claimed that I sealed Mephilia?"

"Probably trying to throw us off," Tenshi said, "get us looking in the wrong direction. Although now that I think about it, giving a specific name would just make it easier for us to figure out it was a lie, even if the person in question hadn't still been around for us to ask. It would've been smarter to just give us a false timeframe instead."

"Deception is still a possibility, though," Miok said. "There is, however, another possibility, and one that I find far more concerning."

"Oh?"

"What if this 'Mephilia' claims to have been sealed by me because it actually believes it was?"

"That's... an interesting thought," Keine said.

"Yeah, it could happen," Tenshi said, "but why's that so concerning?"

"Because," Miko said, "it then brings up the question of what happened to make it believe this. How did it come to think I sealed it, and more importantly, why?"

"You're right," Keine said. "That would be an important question. I'm afraid I don't have any ideas about answers, though."

"Neither do I. I'll send word if I think of anything."

"Thank you."

"Think nothing of it. At the very least, these 'Twisted' clearly pose a threat to Gensokyo's residents; whatever the rest of the truth may be, that much is quite clear at this point. And if Gensokyo is in danger, I will gladly offer my aid. This realm of Senkai is, after all, constructed within Gensokyo. Gensokyo is my home, and I will do whatever I can to protect it."

* * *

A small cave in the middle of nowhere, unoccupied and unremarkable. It would do nicely. Rumia wouldn't be bothered here; someone stumbling upon her in this place was extremely unlikely. Not that it would matter if it did happen. She would be protected during what was about to happen, and she didn't know of anyone in Gensokyo with enough power to overcome that protection.

Rumia turned around, taking one last look at the world before heading into the cave. She reached up, grasping the ribbon in her hair, the ribbon she'd worn for so long. At first, she hadn't even been able to touch it, but that had changed, as now it was time for the ribbon to come off. So she pulled it off and let it fall to the ground. And then she fell to the ground, and a strange darkness drifted out of her, wrapping around her in a cocoon.

As her awareness faded, Rumia's last thought was of Daiyousei. Her only regret in all of this was not telling Dai how she felt. She'd tried to, many times, but she just hadn't been able to bring herself to do it. And now, as the darkness enveloped her, the fairy was all she could think of.

"Dai," Rumia said softly as the darkness flowed over her head. "I... lo..."

The cocoon completely enveloped Rumia, and her awareness slipped away completely.

* * *

 **Yes, NieR: Automata was only announced a few months ago and I'm already using music from it. But then, that track is every bit as good as I'm hoping the rest of the soundtrack will be.**

 **Anyways, if anyone finds the name 'Twisted' familiar, it's because I used it in my very first Touhou fic, Broken World. The fic is still available if you want to read it, but... well, it's not really very good, if you ask me. But if you still want to read it, it's there.**

 **Anyways, I don't really have too much to say about this chapter. Things happened, there was the first major fight with Twisted, some information was revealed, and then some parts of that information were called into question. Of course, you should definitely be paying attention; you never know what seemingly meaningless little things may become important later.**

 **Anyways, I, as always, encourage any reviews, and I'll see you all at the next chapter.**


	5. Chapter 4: Relations

**Chapter 4  
** _Relations_

The Tengu had always had scouts patrolling the mountain, but with Condition Blue in effect, they'd been intensified. By now, all of the scouts had been shown the creature being kept by the kappa, so they knew what to look for, but they still had a very limited knowledge of the creatures' abilities. This was, however, beginning to change. There had been isolated encounters over the past week, from which they'd learned some about their opponents. In particular, the creatures were fairly durable, but not particularly fast or agile, and thus not too difficult for a trained warrior to handle a small number of. So when Momiji Inubashiri saw a lone one of them during one of her patrols, she did as her orders specified and engaged it.

The creatures all seemed to have humanoid forms, but always deformed or twisted in some way. As such, the name 'Twisted' was quickly catching on. This particular Twisted had an arm that became a sword-like blade half-way down. Momiji drew her own sword and engaged the creature at close range. Its swings were wild and sloppy, and Momiji had no difficulty evading them and cutting through the creature repeatedly, keeping it up until the thing went down.

Momiji took a quick look around the area, and spotted a pair of bodies on the ground. _The creature must have killed them just before I arrived he-wait._ She approached the bodies. _Hold on, those are fairies! What is... fairies' bodies disappear when they die, so why... how are these bodies here? A fairy's body vanishes upon death because the spirit resurrects in a new one. Wait, does that mean..._

Momiji took to the air. _I have to report this immediately._

* * *

After stopping by Voile again to tell Liri what she'd learned (or Patchouli, rather; Liri had departed the library by then, but as they'd previously discussed, Patchouli would pass the information to Liri the next time she saw the other magician), Sanae headed back to the shrine, arriving as the sun was setting. Kanako came out to greet her as she landed. "How was the village?"

"Not _too_ bad," Sanae said. "Tensions towards youkai are on the rise, but, fortunately, that doesn't include the divine."

"That's good, at least. You stopped by the mansion, too, right?"

"I did. Found a magician there, Liri. She's looking into the seals, too; she said she stumbled upon one last week. Didn't break it, though, which was smart, even if it's likely to mean little in the end. Anyways, we agreed to share anything we learned, so I left her there and proceeded to the village."

"And how did it go?"

"Well," Sanae said, "I didn't find anything in the records, but... well, there was an attack while I was there. Twisted, about two dozen of them. We managed to defeat them without calling in for help, thanks to some assistance from the Myouren Temple, but... well, one of the Twisted was... different."

"Different," Kanako said. "How?"

"It started out just like any other, but then it... changed. Tenshi and Byakuren fought it, and they said it... spoke to them as it was dying."

"It spoke? Really?"

Sanae nodded. "It called itself 'Mephilia'. It said it was the one creating the Twisted, which was expected. It also said it was using that particular Twisted form as a vessel."

"I see. Do you think it can inhabit any Twisted?"

Sanae shook her head. "I doubt it. Amid the hundreds of stories from outside, many have the evil able to possess its minions and use them as vessels, but I only know of one where it can do this to any of its minions at any time. No, I expect it's limited in which Twisted it can use for that purpose. Probably has to specially create them with that purpose in mind."

"So we probably won't be running into possessed Twisted everywhere. That's good, I suppose. Did you learn anything else?"

"I'm... not sure. It said that the one responsible for sealing it was Prince Shotoku, but we spoke to Toyosatomimi no Miko afterward, and she said she hadn't done any such thing."

"The time wouldn't match, either," Kanako said, "if you're right about the sealing happening a thousand years ago. Shotoku's time, as I recall, was a good five hundred years before that."

"Yeah. So it was probably lying, although that's not something I would have expected. But thanks to something Miko said, I did remember that there's probably someone who knows something about the events of a thousand years ago. Probably someone living in isolation."

"A hermit, then. Like Miko. What about that other hermit girl, Kasen?"

"She's... not as isolated as I'd expect, but it's worth a try. I intend to go speak with her tomorrow."

"Well, regardless of how that goes, it sounds like you know more now than you did before, and that's good."

"Yeah," Sanae said. "Anyways, how'd things go here today? Anything I should know about?"

"A couple things," Kanako said. "First, Nitori paid us a visit. Said her new optical camouflage unit is nearing completion, but that the last parts she needs are in the underground reactor and it'll take a while to make more. She's got Tias starting on that – and another, Teliri, producing enough cameras and projectors for multiple systems – and in the meantime, I went ahead and cleared her to take some of the spares from the plant; she said she and her colleague, Liora, would head down tomorrow."

"That's good," Sanae said. "Sounds like at least a few units should be ready soon, then. We can use them to conceal some of the youkai villges, places that can't defend themselves all that well, so we don't have to worry about them. Defense will be easier with fewer places to worry about."

"Certainly true," Kanako said. "Unfortunately, the other piece of news isn't so good. We received a report from the tengu; one of their scouts found the dead bodies of fairies."

"Dead fairies," Sanae said. "Those die all the time; I'm not sure I understand why that deserves- wait, she found their _bodies_ , you said. Fairies disappear when they die, though."

"Yes," Kanako said. "Their bodies vanish because their spirits are resurrected in new ones. Which means that these fairies didn't resurrect. This, it would seem, is evidence that the Twisted can kill – truly _kill_ – fairies."

Sanae just sighed. "Of course they can. Probably any immortals, not just fairies." Then, muttering to herself, "Wouldn't be enough of a threat otherwise, would it?" And then, aloud, "Well, unfortunately, fairies are fairies. We'll aid them when we can, of course, but they're everywhere. And, of course, only a select few are even smart enough to know what danger is. There's no way we'll be able to place them under any sort of protection."

"Unfortunate, but true. But we will do everything we can, Sanae. For them and for everyone else in Gensokyo. Don't forget that."

"I know," Sanae said. "I know." Then, "Well, I'm tired and hungry. I'm going to have some dinner and go to bed."

"A good idea, I think," Kanako said. "Rest up so you can do more work tomorrow."

"Yeah," Sanae said. "Rest up." _Because soon, there won't be time to rest._

* * *

The next day found Liri, once again, in the library of Voile. But this time, instead of searching the shelves, she went straight to Patchouli. "Ah, Liri," Patchouli said. "I have something for you. Sanae visited again just after you left."

"Oh?" Liri said. "She found something already?"

"Less 'found' and more 'stumbled upon'. And she's not sure how much of it is correct. Apparently some of it doesn't match up with her previous information. Here." She handed Liri a small stack of paper. "I had Koa transcribe our conversation."

"Thank you," Liri said. "I'll take a look at it, but first I have something to ask you about. Would I be correct in assuming some of the tengu papers are delivered here?"

"Indeed you would. Aya in particular throws hers around everywhere, regardless of who truly wants it. Although Remilia actually enjoys that one. Apparently she finds Aya's... 'style' amusing. I don't care for it, myself, and I wouldn't expect you to, either."

"That's normally true. Especially for Aya; if I _did_ want such information, I'd get it from a source that's actually accurate. But for what I'm looking for, the Bunbunmaru may actually be the best source."

"Oh? Unless you're looking for unfounded accusations, I fail to see what use Aya's... 'reporting' could be."

"She deals in speculation and rumor," Liri said, "and rumor happens to be exactly what I'm looking for."

Patchouli chuckled. "Well, you've picked a fine resource, then. But you aren't the type to care about rumor and speculation. Why the sudden interest?"

"Sanae said there are probably more places like the one I found. I've failed to find any information here, even the smallest hint, so I've decided to search for these other locations. The problem is that I don't have any clues as to their location. I do know, however, that the cave my friend found appeared literally overnight. So there's a pretty decent chance the same will be true of any other locations."

"And something like that is bound to be a topic of speculation. Yes, that makes sense. There's certainly no guarantee such a thing would make it into the Bunbunmaru or any of the other tengu papers, but there's enough of a chance that it's worth looking. I'll have Koa ask Sakuya to bring the paper here once Remilia's finished with it."

"Thank you," Liri said.

* * *

Nitori and Liora landed next to the entrance to the underground. Not the main entrance, the 'Fantastic Wind Hole' that led to the oni's city, but rather the newer one, leading directly to the Underground Nuclear Plant. "That," Liora said, "is a big hole."

"Suwako made it," Nitori said. "It leads straight to the plant. Gives us a direct route. You've never been here before, then."

"Never had a reason to come. No need for optics here."

"The downside of specialization," Nitori said. "A specialist is useless outside her specialty. If optics aren't involved, there's nothing you can do. Although the upside is that, while you may not be of use anywhere else, you're better even than me at the one area you specialize in."

"Gee, thanks."

Nitori seemed oblivious to the sarcasm. "You're welcome. Now come on, let's get moving. If we're quick, there may be enough time to modify the prototype and test it today."

"All right," Liora said. "You've been here before, so lead the way."

* * *

Yesterday, Rumia had gone into the cave. Now, someone else came out. She looked much like an adult version of Rumia might, though there were certainly differences. She carried herself differently, for one. But perhaps the most significant change was the absence of Rumia's signature ribbon.

As she emerged from the cave, the woman took a look around. _It's been a long time since I've seen the world like this. Of course, it's been a long time since_ I _did anything._ Or maybe it hadn't been; she really wasn't sure where she ended and Rumia began, if there even was such a point. But she could wonder about that later. Right now, she had work to do. _Five points. Five locations spread throughout Gensokyo._ She would have to visit all five. And she didn't know where they were. Well, not exactly, anyways, but given the geometry involved, she knew which areas to search in, and as she approached each point, she would be able to sense it. So it wouldn't be too hard to find them.

She took to the air, heading for the first area.

"Okay," Wriggle said, "this is getting ridiculous. Where the heck is Cirno?"

Wriggle, Mystia, and Daiyousei had gathered at Mystia's stand in the forest, one of their usual meeting places, but Cirno was nowhere to be seen. Of course, the ice fairy was never known for her punctuality, but she was rarely _this_ late.

"I don't know," Mystia said, "but at least she's a fairy. Unlike Rumia, we know Cirno'll be okay. Even if something kills her, she'll just pop right back up a bit later."

"Still," Daiyousei said, "she knew we'd be here, and it's not like her to blow us off. I don't know, maybe she did get into a fight and get the crap knocked out of her. Or maybe- wait, I think I see her."

The other two turned to look, and sure enough, Cirno was in sight and heading towards them. But she wasn't alone. The ice fairy was being pursued by three others, exchanging fire with them as she flew towards the stand.

Wriggle sighed. "Typical. Should've known she'd gone to piss off those three again. Don't know why she's leading them on a chase, but let's get in there and take them out. Get this over with quickly so we can get back to looking for Rumia."

The others nodded and spread out as they approached. Cirno's opponents were the fairy trio of Sunny Milk, Luna Child, and Star Sapphire. Cirno was actually strong enough to beat the three of them, but they were smarter, and after a couple losses had adjusted their tactics. Their 'teamwork' had at first just been all three of them attacking the same target, but now they'd actually learned to work together effectively, and though Cirno still won more often than not, the trio was emerging victorious more and more often. But Cirno still insisted on charging at them head-on by herself; what she was doing now was highly unusual for her. But they could think about that later; right now, the task was to take the trio out so they could get back to finding Rumia.

The fight didn't last long; the fairies were already somewhat worn out from fighting Cirno, and their attention being focused entirely on the ice fairy made getting behind them unnoticed a simple task. Wriggle struck first, delivering a diving kick to Star's head that sent her careening towards the ground. Daiyousei began trading fire with Luna as Mystia dove at Sunny, slashing at her. Then both of them were hit from above by blocks of ice. Mystia was only targeted once, but Cirno's ice kept hitting Sunny until she was on the ground next to Star. Then Wriggle landed a kick on Luna, knocking her down next to the other two. Mystia went into a dive, only to bestopped by a sheet of ice as Cirno landed next to the dazed fairies. "Don't kill them!"

Wriggle, Mystia, and Daiyousei landed around the fairy trio. "Why not?" Wriggle said. "We need to get this over with so we can get back to finding Rumia."

"But that's it!" Cirno said. "They're going to help us!"

Sunny pushed herself off the ground. "And why would we do that?"

"We beat you, so you have to do what we say!"

The other two fairies got up as well. "Yeah," Star said, "but only 'cause you cheated! You only beat us because these three helped you!"

Wriggle laughed at that. "So you're allowed to have help, but she's not? Nice logic there."

"Shut up!" Sunny said. "You're not a part of this anyways! Cirno's supposed to fight us alone! She only won because you cheated!"

"No way!" Cirno said. "I can beat you with both hands tied behind my back!"

"Then why'd you need help?"

"Because I'm the strongest, not the... taking prisoners-est! If I killed you again, you couldn't help. Because you'd be dead. And I'd have to wait until you came back and try again."

"Why don't you, then, huh? Or are you too afraid you can't win now that you've already used up your ambush?"

"To be fair," Daiyousei said, "she didn't tell us a thing. We only helped fight you so we could get back to finding Rumia sooner."

"And now we'll find her even faster," Cirno said, "because instead of four people looking, we have... um... four and three... that's... that's..."

Wriggle's hand met her face. "Please don't try to do math."

"Well, it doesn't matter. We have more people, so we can look in more places!"

There was silence for a bit, and then Mystia spoke. "Wait, that's the only reason you brought them into this? To have more people looking?"

"Yeah! Duh!"

"You brought in a group including someone who can _sense people_ , and all you'd thought of is just increasing our numbers?"

There were a couple seconds of silence from Cirno.. "Oh... um... yeah, that's... Star can sense her, that's totally what I planned. You figured it out!"

Now it was Mystia's turn to facepalm. "You're an idiot, Cirno."

"Hey!"

"Okay," Wriggle said, "it sounds like we should just hang out and wait for Rumia to come and watch us like she's been doing, then when she does, Star tells us and we surround her and make her tell us what she's been doing."

"Yeah, that's it," Cirno said. "That's the plan."

"Oh, sure," Mystia said, "'cause you're _totally_ capable of coming up with a good plan."

"Hey! I'll have you know that coming up with a plan is easy for someone of my genious!"

"...Did you just _say_ 'geni _ous_ '?"

Daiyousei just sighed to herself as she watched all of this. _Well, I guess this counts as 'hanging out'. Hopefully Rumia'll show up soon and we can figure out just what's going on with her. And,_ her train of thought continued, _why she seems so much less interested in the others than she is in me._

* * *

 _This is the place, then?_ Sanae thought as she landed. She knocked on the door of the shop, to which the response was, "Come in!"

As Sanae entered the shop, the kappa looked up from her equipment. "How can I help- ah, Lady Kochiya! What're you doing- I-I mean, what brings you here? Oh, wait, I should introduce myself." She gave a bow. "Teliri Nelkishi, at your service. What can I do for you, Lady Kochiya?"

Sanae suppressed the urge to laugh. "I understand you're assisting in production of Kawashiro's new optical camouflage system; is that correct?"

"I don't know how much I'm helping- well, no, you said 'assisting in production'. Yeah, I think that's the right way to put it, actually. Yeah, I'm making the optical components." Teliri gestured to her rather complex-looking machinery. "As you can see, I'm set up for fairly quick production."

"I have no idea what any of that is, actually," Sanae said, "so I'll just take your word for it."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"It's not a problem. So, then, I assume you're involved because of how quickly you can make the needed components?"

"That's part of it," Teliri said. "The other part is trust, both in my abilities and in me as a person. I was actually an apprentice of hers, you know. She knows me well enough to trust me with her designs. In order to modify my equipment to produce her designs, she gave me all the information I'd need to steal them. It's 'cause she knows I won't."

"I see," Sanae said. "So, then, should I assume things are going well?"

"Certainly. By the time Liora and Nitori get the thing working, I'll have more than enough projectors for as many systems as they need."

"That's good. I want camouflage systems up and running as soon as possible."

"Well, I'm not sure how quickly they'll be able to come up with the other parts, but if production _does_ hit bottleneck, it won't be because of me."

"That's good to hear," Sanae said. "Oh, and while I'm here, let's discuss the issue of payment. I don't expect the components you're making to come for free, after all."

"I'm glad to hear it," Teliri said. "I do need to make a living here, after all. I can give you a bulk rate, though. Hmm..." Teliri walked over to a desk and started going through papers and writing things down. "My normal rate is... but with the changes... then add the..."

Sanae let her work. She knew many of the kappa and tengu would be willing to provide services for the shrine without payment, but she insisted on paying anyways. People did, after all, need to make a living. And besides, why bother collecting donations if the shrine wasn't going to make use of the money?

When Teliri finished her calculations, Sanae took a quick look at the result. "That seems a more than fair price," she said, although if she were to be honest, she didn't truly know what such things usually cost. Still, the figure looked reasonable, and it was easily within the shrine's means. "All right, then. With that settled, I'll be on my way."

"Got it. I'll let you know if I run into any issues."

"Thanks," Sanae said as she exited the shop. "I appreciate it."

* * *

The kappa engineers at the Underground Nuclear Plant were not particularly pleased with the idea of giving up so many of their spare parts, but the order came direct from the Moriya Shrine, so they complied. But that didn't mean they were happy about it.

"You're taking half-a-dozen of our spares with you," one of the kappa said as Liora and Nitori were led into the storage area. "I hope you realize what that means for us."

"That's half your supply," Liora said. "You'll notice that still leaves you with six."

"And what if we need more than that?"

"If that was likely, we wouldn't have been authorized to take as many."

"Yeah? And what if you break them? You probably will, too; you have no idea how to handle them properly, do you?"

"I know they're not so fragile as to break from a few bumps, or from being handled 'the wrong way'."

"See, that's exactly the kind of attitude that gets things broken. You have no idea what you're doing, but you think you do."

"...Really?" Liora said. "That's what you're going with? Seriously, I'll just be transporting them. I don't think I'll screw that up."

"You will if you don't know how to-"

"Hey!" Nitori said. "Calm down! I'll carry them, all right? She may not know how to handle equipment like this, but I do, and you know it. I'm the smarter one; I know how to make sure they don't get damaged. All right?"

"How are you going to carry it all yourself?"

"Why are you even asking that? You know our packs are bigger on the inside! Now just leave us to this. I'll make sure nothing gets damaged, all right?"

"...Fine," the kappa said. "I guess that's okay. Whatever, just take what you're here for and get out." And then she left the two of them alone in the storage room.

"...Well, then," Liora said after a moment. "Well, Nitori, I... _think_ you were trying to help, so thanks, I guess."

"Not a problem," Nitori said. "Obviously she just forgot about me when she saw you. They know who I am down here. You may not have any idea what you're doing, but I do, and they know it. I'll take the spares in my pack; that way we know you won't damage them."

"...Right. That works."

"Yeah, I'm the smart one here. Let me take care of it."

 _Good lord, woman, you're just completely oblivious to your own attitude, aren't you?_ "Right. Well, come on, then. Let's load them up."

* * *

Sirena came up beside Kiro as he stood near the edge of the village, watching as Daichi and Elise headed out towards the forest. "Heading off for today's hunt, are they?"

"Yeah," Kiro said. "They think they've identified the youkai responsible for the two farmers who went missing a few days ago."

"That's good. But... well, what happens if they run into whoever was behind yesterday's attack?"

"We still don't know for sure that any single youkai _was_ behind it, Ren. You and Hoshu saw someone watching the fight; that's all we know right now. Yeah, she could've been behind it, but maybe she was just a youkai looking to grab someone, and she got distracted when she caught sight of the battle or something like that?"

"Do you really think that?"

"I don't know what I think right now," Kiro admitted. "There's plenty of dangerous youkai out there, but none of them come after the village directly. Maybe it's finally happening, and maybe it's not. And remember, we don't know what those... things, the things that attacked, actually were."

"Harui thinks a youkai made them, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, but she thinks they're behind everything. Sure, it's possible a youkai made them, but we don't _know_. We don't really know anything at this point. That's what worries me."

"The unknown," Sirena said. "You're hardly the only one who's ever been afraid of what might be out there. I think everybody worries about the unknown to some extent."

"True. Still, though. It's concerning."

"That it is. But Daichi and Elise are going to be keeping alert, right?"

"Yeah. And to answer your original question, if some individual youkai _is_ responsible for the attack and they run into her, well, they know when they're outmatched, and they've got a few tricks to help themselves get away."

"That's good," Sirena said. "They're good hunters, and good people, too. I'd hate to lose them."

"That makes two of us, Ren. That makes two of us."

* * *

Liora and Nitori emerged from the underground and started for the mountain, but it wasn't even a minute later that the two of them caught sight of a group of Twisted. "Uh-oh," Nitori said. "We've got incoming."

"I see them," Liora said. "Five Twisted, in the air and heading right for us."

"Right in our path, too. This could be a problem. I don't want to risk damage to the parts we picked up, but they're moving quickly enough that evasion will be problematic."

"Then it's a fight."

"I just told you I don't want to risk damage to the parts we got."

 _Really, Nitori? Jeez, for someone who's so damn 'smart', you sure can miss the obvious, can't you?_ "Then don't. There's only five of them. I can handle it."

"By yourself?"

"You know I'm good in a fight, Nitori." _Even if you don't think I'm good for anything else outside of optics._ "I can handle it."

"...You do know how to handle yourself in a fight," Nitori said. "I still don't like risking you, though. I might have trouble with the camouflage system without an optics expert."

 _Gee, so glad you care._ "I'll be fine," Liora said.

"But what if you-"

 _Gah!_ "If I die, then go to Teliri, okay? Jeez! Just get the parts back to your shop, okay? I'll meet you there!"

"All right. I guess you're less irreplaceable, anyways."

 _Oh, for- really?_ "Yeah, you're the smart one here, I know. Jut get moving already!"

"All right," Nitori said.

Nitori flew off sideways, circling wide around the Twisted as Liora approached them head-on, drawing their attention. _Just five of them,_ she thought as she gave the mental command to bring her combat equipment online. _Should be simple._

Ordinarily, Liora wouldn't have brought her combat equipment for a trip such as this one, but the current situation was far from ordinary. With Twisted all over the place, anyone leaving the village was advised to be prepared for battle, and that advice had just proved its worth. Liora's equipment came online, sending a brief systems readout directly into her eye. _Everything's functional. Good. All right, let's do this._

A kappa's pack didn't look anywhere near large enough to hold much in the way of equipment, but this was Gensokyo; there were quite a few ways to make something bigger on the inside. The combination of magic and kappa technology meant that a kappa's pack could hold all the weaponry and equipment she needed and still have room to store other things.

Liora's gear was matched to her mind, allowing her to control it mentally by directing her thoughts at it. [ _Activate missiles._ ]

The missile targeting system activated, sending its display directly to Liora's eyes. She directed the targeting reticule over the Twisted, marking all five as targets, and a message blinked at the top of the display. **_Warning: target trace erratic. Accuracy may suffer._** Which she'd expected; Twisted weren't actually _alive_ in any known sense, and as such there were no life signs to detect. They did still have a physical presence, and that could be detected, but not quite as effectively. It wasn't enough of an effect to actually make them more difficult to _detect_ , but precision _tracking was_ affected. Of course, Liora was pretty sure it's still work well enough.

Liora fired the missiles, and they indeed homed in on their targets fairly effectively. Some missed, especially since the flying Twisted that had started appearing were more agile than the land-bound ones, but others struck their targets. But the Twisted kept coming, and Liora switched weapons. [ _Magicannon._ ]

A new weapon deployed from the pack, attaching itself to Liora's left arm. Liora only had so many missiles, but a magicannon was fueled by its user's own magic energy, which it channeled into blasts. Liora's preferred model was low in power but with a very high rate of fire, and she opened fire on the Twisted as she flew backwards, keeping the distance open between herself and them. Unfortunately, the blasts didn't seem to be doing much. _Right, time to change tactics._ [ _Swords._ ]

The magicannon was pulled back into the pack as the swords were deployed, one in each hand, with a metal framework around Liora's arms. Liora was no expert swordswoman, but the framework was linked to her combat processor. As Liora charged the Twisted, optimal moves and proper technique were fed to her through the optical display, and as she executed each move, the framework, under the control of the combat processor, helped to direct her movements for maximum effect.

It took a little while – Twisted seemed to generally be fairly durable – but eventually the first enemy fell, and then the second. The remaining three charged her together, but she evaded behind the cover of another missile launch, then singled out of of them and cut through it, which was enough to finish it off, leaving only two more. But then the situation changed. **_Warning: additional hostiles approaching._**

Liora took a quick look at the displayed information. _Shit._ There were two approaching groups of about ten Twisted each. _Way too many to handle by myself, and they're moving at a pretty good pace, so outrunning them won't be easy. Which leaves..._

As Liora continued her fight against the two Twisted currently engaging her, she fed some calculations to her processor, which quickly gave her the results. _Group one's got an angle to intercept me right at the hole, but I'll be able to get into it, and then it's just a chase._ But she had to get moving immediately, so she fired a few more missiles at the Twisted pair, racing away from them as they evaded. They gave chase, but she had at least a little distance on them now.

The way Liora saw it, she only had one option. If she tried to run, the Twisted would follow her, and these ones were fast enough that she didn't think she could lose them. She _could_ , however, lead them somewhere, somewhere she'd find enough backup to take out even this many. And the nearest such place was the one she'd just left. The Underground Nuclear Plant. Unfortunately, the angle of approach of one of the groups was such that it would intercept her just as she entered the passage down, but she expected she could deal with that long enough to reach help.

As Liora headed to the passage underground, she gave another command to her system. [ _Contact Underground Nuclear Plant. Emergency identifier._ ] The system, which included communication equipment, obliged, and Liora's call was quickly answered. As expected, since she'd marked it as an emergency.

"I'm here," the kappa on the other end of the call said. "Report."

"This is Liora. I'm heading your way, and I've got Twisted in pursuit!"

"You're under attack? Wait, you were just here to raid our backup supplies, weren't you? How the hell'd you manage to get in trouble so quickly?"

"Bad luck, obviously. Nitori's got the equipment; I'm the bait so she can get away, but there's too many for me to handle, so I'm bringing them to you!"

There was silence on the other end, but only for a moment. "Acknowledged. We'll ready our defenses. Just get here alive."

"Got it," Liora said, and ended the call. _I'll be safe when I get there. I just have to get there first._

Liora soon reached the hole and flew down into it, the nearer Twisted group right on her heels. _Have to fight them off long enough to reach backup. All right, then. Let's do this._

* * *

 **Yeah, short chapter this time. I originally planned for a lot more to happen in this chapter, but then I realize how long it was getting to be, so I decided to end the chapter here. Hell, the next one's probably going to be a sizable one anyways; there's a lot that'll happen in it. So look forward to that.**

 **On a different note, the last two chapters of this story have received no reviews, and to be honest, that's somewhat discouraging. I really want to hear what my readers have to say, so please take a minute or two to let me know what you think.**


	6. Chapter 5: Anomalies

**Chapter 5  
** _Anomalies_

As Sanae headed down the mountain, bound for where Kasen lived, she was busy in thought. Something was bothering her, had been since she'd spoken with Teliri. But _what_?

Sanae went over their meeting in her mind: introductions, Teliri saying she was set up for quick production, that Liora'd come to her out of trust, the clear respect she had for her mentor, the- _wait_.

Her _mentor_.

 _Oh, shit._

There had been some... oddities, but so far, events had proceeded pretty much as Sanae'd expected based off of her knowledge of the outside world's so-called 'epic fantasy' stories. But now, she remembered another fact about those stories, that someone, usually but not always the 'hero' of the story, usually had some manner of mentor figure.

And the mentor always died.

 _Okay, Sanae, focus. Don't panic; think._ Liora was the mentor figure here, which meant she was in danger. But the mentor's death was usually due to the character sacrificing him/herself in some way, and always happened in the presence of the student. And they weren't together right now, which meant there _should_ still be time. _Still, I should find Liora as soon as possible._ After all, there were those oddities to consider; things might not be happening _precicely_ as expected. Fortunately, although she didn't know where Liora was right at that moment, she _did_ know that Liora and Nitori were picking up spare parts from the reactor today, which gave her a place to check in with first. But before she could reach for her comm unit, she caught sight of a lone figure flying up the mountain, and as the figure came closer, she recognized it as Nitori. _Okay, good, that means they're- wait, why is Nitori alone?_

Nitori came to a halt as Sanae flew over to her. "Ah, Lady Kochiya! I didn't expect- what are you doing here?"

"I was going to see someone," Sanae said. "More importantly, why are you alone? Where's Liora?"

"Fighting," Nitori said. "We got attacked on the way back from the plant. I've got the parts, but those could get damaged in a fight, so she's taking the Twisted on herself."

 _Oh,_ shit _._ "You left her by herself?"

"Yeah. There were just five of them; she can handle that many."

 _Not good not good not good._ "We've got to get to her, now!"

"Why?" Nitori said. "What's happening?"

"She's in danger! We have to go help her!"

"Um, it's just five Twisted. She'll be fine. Besides, if she needs my help, I'm sure she'll contact me."

And then, at that exact moment, Nitori's comm unit chimed.

* * *

[BGM = /watch?v=MB5u99eLPO4]

Liora was in the passage to the nuclear plant, but so was the nearer group of Twisted. She turned to face them as she flew down, designating targets and firing missiles, but she wasn't aiming to kill. She knew she wouldn't be able to handle a dozen of them (the ten from the new group plus the two survivors from the initial five she'd engaged), much less the second group of ten that wouldn't be all that far behind. Fortunately, all she had to was keep them at bay until she could reach the plant, where she'd find help.

 _ **Warning: missile ammunition at 25%** Not good,_ Liora thought as she dismissed the warning. _I've gotta keep firing, keep hitting them and keeping them back, but the magicannon doesn't seem to do shit and the bombs aren't good for something like this._ The bombs had no tracking ability, and while the blasts were large enough that direct hits weren't necessary, any that missed these targets wouldn't hit anything at all; they'd just keep sailing through the air until their flight paths led them to hit the side of the passage- _wait, the side!_

Liora switched to bombs and started launching. She'd appreciate any hits, of course, but misses were acceptable; the bombs flew into the sides of the passage and exploded, blasting free chunks of rock that then tumbled down the shaft. [ _Simultaneous deployment: magicannon._ ] The bomb launcher was already equipped on her left arm, and now the magicannon deployed onto her right. [ _Track debris. Evaluate vulnerability to magicannon and mark destructibility._ ] A Twisted dove at her, but she knocked it back with a missile, the missile launcher being fully contained in her pack and thus usable even with other weapons on both arms.

Highlights around the falling rocks began appearing in Liora's vision, her system evaluating and marking them according to the results. _**Red: not destructible with currently-equipped magicannon. Green: Destructible with equipped magicannon. Yellow: Destructable with equipped magicannon only if using charge function. Warning: current magicannon model does not support charge functionality; use of charge is likely to damage magicannon.**_ Which was unfortunate, but Liora had decided to prioritize accuracy and rate of fire, which came with tradeoffs. And, unfortunately, those tradeoffs were proving significant right now, as her magicannon's weaker blasts didn't seem to do much of anything to the Twisted, nor were they, according to her system's evaluations, sufficient to destroy very many of the earthen chunks her bombs were blasting loose, so she'd have to evade them instead. But the Twisted had to deal with them, too, and they didn't have the advantage of Liora's combat software to mark the rocks' trajectories.

Liora weaved through the stone rain, trusting her system to warn her of anything outside her field of vision and firing another bomb whenever she had a clear shot. The Twisted weren't as able to evade, and some of them started taking hits from the falling rocks. Others did manage to evade, but doing so slowed them more than it did Liora, who begun to pull ahead of them.

And then one of the Twisted hit her dead-on with a blast of energy.

Liora didn't have time to think about the fact that she'd just been hit with something no Twisted had yet shown any ability to do; she had to focus on the now. She got control of herself in time to avoid being knocked into the wall, but she then had to make a sudden dodge to avoid a large rock that went plummeting past her. Then the Twisted fired another blast. Liora dodged this one, but another Twisted came at her from above, slashing with a blade-like leg. Liora tried to back away, but only partially succeeded, the Twisted cutting a gash into her left arm and slicing through a piece of the bomb launcher. Then another energy blast hit her, and this time she was still too close to the wall to avoid being knocked into it. Then another of the Twisted charged into her, further slamming her into the wall., She gave up the damaged bomb launcher in favor of a sword and cut through the Twisted, then dodged around as the one that had cut her came in again, knocking it away with a missile. Her path took her beneath a massive chunk of rock, the largest one yet, but she had more than enough time to get out of its way.

And then the rock blew apart, three Twisted having blasted it in unison.

Liora found herself having to deal with an unexpected shower of rock shards, not to mention several dangerous larger pieces, but she almost managed it. Almost, but then the Twisted began firing blasts at her, and though she dodged the first two, the third hit her, sending her crashing into the largest piece. And then a Twisted charged into her from above at an angle. Liora was knocked downwards into the wall, and fell onto a small ledge right beneath her.

Liora, bloodied and beaten, tried to pick herself up, but couldn't. Her system was warning her of a broken leg, a broken left arm, and quite a few other broken bones. Not to mention the damage to her equipment. _**Tracking/targeting system offline. Magicannon structural integrity low; further use will likely result in the weapon's destruction. Bomb launcher offline. Sword guidance system offline.**_ Liora's weapons all had some degree of damage, and she was injured badly enough that she could barely move. But she wasn't about to give up.

At this point, there were five Twisted left, and Liora waited as they closed in. And then she fired every missile she had left in a single barrage, and although the tracking system was offline, the targets were close enough that they all took hits. In fact, the barrage was enough to finish three of them off, but the other two kept coming. Liora was still able to move her right arm, holding the magicannon, and she aimed it at one of the Twisted, feeding it a strong burst of energy that resulted in a charged blast strong enough to knock it back. But this destroyed the magicannon, so Liora launched it into the Twisted, distracting it long enough that one of the last chunks of falling rock struck it, which was enough to kill it. But there was still one Twisted left, and Liora only had one even partially-functional weapon left.

[ _Sword._ ]

Liora's combat gear was heavily damaged, and could barely deploy just the sword, much less the supporting framework. But though it struggled, it got the sword into Liora's hand in time, and she raised it just as the last Twisted charged in, impaling the creature and finishing it off.

[End BGM]

Then, her strength spent, she dropped the sword and lay in place, almost motionless, too injured to do anything else. But she'd taken out all twelve Twisted, and aid from the nuclear plant was on its way. They'd be able to get her what treatment she'd need, but even then, a human would have no chance of survival, not with her injuries. She, however, was youkai, and though the kappa weren't exactly the toughest youkai physically, they were enough tougher than humans that Liora would survive.

And then, barely, she made out the distant forms of the second Twisted group descending through the tunnel. _What the- how the_ hell _are they coming already? They were at_ least _another couple minutes behind me!_ [ _Check comm systems._ ]

 _ **Comm systems operational.**_

 _Well, at least there's that,_ Liora thought. [ _Contact Underground Nuclear Plant._ ]

The same kappa as before answered the call. "Liora, is that you? What's your status?"

Liora could barely get the words out. "About... three-quarters of the way down. Can't... move. Enemy approaching. How... long until..."

"Reiuji's on her way out from the core. She should reach your position in five minutes."

 _Five minutes? Why is it taking so long? Surely she should at least be in the tunnel by now._ "That's... too long." Then Liora cut the connection. [ _Contact Nitori Kawashiro._ ]

It was only a few seconds until Nitori's voice answered. "Liora? Is that you?"

"I... messed up," Liora said, again barely able to get the words out. "I'm... sorry."

"Liora? Liora, what are you talking about?"

 _Not enough time to say much._ "You'll... have to... get Teliri... to take my place. Tell her... tell her goodbye."

"Liora? What are you saying? You think I'll have to finish without you?"

"You... can do it. You're... the 'smart one'... right?"

"Liora? Liora!"

"Good... bye... Nitori."

Liora cut the connection. _This is it, then. Well, I may go out, but like hell I'm going out alone._ [ _Arm all remaining bombs._ ]

 _ **Warning: bomb launcher offline. Directed action falls under suicide protocol.**_

[ _Understood. Activate suicide protocol. Arm all remaining bombs. Detonate upon death._ ]

 _ **Acknowledged. Suicide protocol active.**_

As the Twisted approached, Liora's thoughts turned to Teliri. Her regret, her only real regret, was not telling Teliri the truth. Not being honest with her former student. But then... _Wait, why the hell am I feeling like that? I_ have _told her the truth. I told her as soon as she finished her-_

That was Liora's last thought as the Twisted struck.

* * *

"No," Sanae said. "No, no, no, no, no!"

"Come on!" Nitori said. "If she's in trouble, we have to go help!"

"Don't you get it?" Sanae screamed at the kappa. "It's too late! There's nothing we can do! Liora's dead! She's dead because I was too damn _stupid_ to realize this was coming!"

Nitori knew Sanae was right, at least about Liora being dead. She wasn't sure how it'd happened – maybe more Twisted had shown up? - but her call had clearly been one of farewell. But... "No," she said softly.

Sanae was still yelling, mainly at herself, but even so, Nitori's single, soft word got her attention. "What?"

"No," Nitori said. "You didn't get her killed." And then, without saying anything more, she flew off towards the kappa village.

* * *

The kappa Hikari, in the Underground Nuclear Reactor, turned away from her display. "Okay, what the _hell_ was all that?"

"She's dead," another kappa said. "There was a significant explosion in the tunnel shortly after her last call; I'm guessing she detonated her munitions when she heard help wouldn't be there in time. I think Utsuho's still going up just in case, but it's unlikely any Twisted remain."

"Yeah, I _figured_ that, Noriko. The _question_ is why the hell we _couldn't_ get there in time. Reiuji should've been headed up the tunnel just a couple minutes after we notified her of an incoming enemy, so why the hell wasn't she? It does _not_ take that long to ensure reactor stability and get out there."

Noriko was looking over her own display. "I... don't know. Let me bring up the activity logs... yeah, no errors or notifications of any kind, but... well, stability confirmation and auto switchover took, like, three or four times as long as they should have."

"And why the hell didn't you notice this at the time?"

Noriko was silent for a moment. "I... don't know. Looking at it now, it's obvious, but at the time... it, it just never occurred to me. I... can't explain it. And... what about you? You should have noticed, too, but did you?"

"I... no," Hikari admitted. "For some reason, I didn't. What the _hell_ is going on here?" A pause, then, "Okay, just standing here won't tell us anything." She hit a combination on her console, turning on the address system in the maintenance department. "Maintenance, I need a full systems check in all areas. A _full_ check. That means diagnostics _and_ physical inspection of all components. Yes, I know it's time-consuming, and I know it'll take a few days to check everything, but this is Priority Two, so get on it immediately; anything other than critical maintenance can wait until it's done." She closed the channel and turned to the other kappa in the room, Noriko and two others. "All right, we're not going to just stand around waiting on their results. Kerai, Nerika, I want a digital reconstruction of the incident as soon as possible; get it set up and start running simulations, see if you can isolate whatever anomaly is responsible for this. Noriko, I want all recordings, all data, starting from when Nitori and Liora got here to pick up our spare parts. Get it together and send it to my office."

"Sure thing," Noriko said. "It may help if I know what you're looking for, though."

"I'm not looking for anything. I simply want as much information from that time frame as we have. We're talking about a temporal anomaly here, and none of us know much of anything about that. So I'm going to look over that data, those recordings, see what all is there, and then tomorrow I'm going to consult with an expert."

"Got it. I'll have the information compiled within the hour."

"Good. Okay, you all have your instructions. Let's get to work."

"Yes, Ma'am!" the three kappa replied simultaneously.

* * *

The group had moved into a large clearing in the woods. Cirno and the fairy trio were bickering over some thing or another, Daiyousei was watching them with a look of exasperation, and Wriggle, sitting on a rock at the edge of the clearing, looked up as Mystia came to join her. "Got tired of listening to the idiot squad, huh?"

Mystia sat down beside Wriggle. "There's only so much of that anyone can take. I _really_ hope Rumia shows up soon so we can get rid of those three. We don't need four idiots; just Cirno is enough."

"Having Star around does make things easier, though. We don't have to worry about keeping watch for Rumia; Star'll tell us when someone comes close. And Rumia won't have any reason to think we know she's there, whereas she might if we keep looking around."

"Unless she sees Star."

"Yeah, but Star'll know as soon as she gets close. We'll know she's there before she figures out that we do."

"I guess that's true," Mystia said. "I just hope it happens soon; I think I've had enough fairy to last- wait. Wriggle, do you see that?"

Wriggle followed Mystia's gaze out into the woods. "No, I don't see anything. You've got better eyes, though."

"And I can barely see it, but it looks like a person."

"Let's take a look, then."

Wriggle and Mystia headed into the woods, soon coming to what Mystia had seen, which turned out to be not one person but three, all of them fairies. And all three fairies were motionless, with heavy wounds.

"What the hell?" Wriggle said as she knelt down over one of the fairies. "Um, Mystia? Am I crazy, or do these fairies look... well, dead?"

Mystia was examining another of the bodies. "If these were human or youkai, I'd definitely say they're dead, but..."

"But fairies don't leave bodies when they're killed."

"Then what is this?"

"I don't know," Wriggle said. "Unless... well, I guess the obvious guess is that they _are_ dead. Like, actually dead, not fairy-dead."

"That's not possible."

"I know, but... neither is what we're already seeing here."

"I... guess that's true. But... what could have done this? If these fairies are for-real dead, then how? What killed them?"

"I don't know."

"Yeah, neither do I. Nothing can do that." Mystia paused. _Unless..._ "Wriggle, you don't suppose it was those... _things_ , do you?"

"Like the one that attacked us? That... whatever it was that didn't even seem truly alive? I... I think you may be right. At least, if that's really what happened here, I can't think of anything else that could do it, but we don't know what the hell those things can do. Or even what they are."

"Let's get back to the others," Mystia said. "I _really_ don't like this."

"I know what you mean. All right, let's go."

* * *

Liri had been engaged in her research almost non-stop since discovering the strange cave, but with no results. That, of course, was why she'd decided to try and find the other locations Sanae believed existed, but she didn't have any knowledge of where to start looking. Hopefully that would change – if the other locations also appeared suddenly, surely Aya or one of the other tengu journalists would at least mention it – but until then, she had nothing to go on. Sure, she could search all of Gensokyo herself, but that was not an appealing prospect. So she decided to wait at least a day or two, and since she didn't seem to have any other worthwhile avenues to pursue, she'd decided to take a break from her research and make another visit to the Myouren Temple.

This time, it wasn't Byakuren herself that Liri spoke to, but one of her disciples, the tiger youkai Shou Toramaru. "I've definitely been fully occupied since my last visit," Liri was saying, "but... I'm not sure it's in a helpful way. You might even call it an obsession. I found... something, something I can't explain, and ever since, I've been trying to find answers."

"I can't say that I see anything wrong with that," Shou said, "at least not in regards to finding your place in the world. You may need to control your obsession, if that's indeed what it is, but what you're doing isn't harmful in and of itself. I mean, this is hardly the first time you've researched something intently, is it? If nothing else, I expect you've devoted significant time and effort to your magic; I understand you're fairly capable as a magician."

"That's different. That's something I've been doing my whole life. But this... this only started recently, after my first visit here. And... when I finally took a break from my work today, I... I started to wonder if I was latching onto this in place of the purpose I don't have."

"And what if you are?"

"Well... um..."

"In this world," Shou said, "youkai are no longer born with a purpose. And there's nothing wrong with not having a purpose. Heck, humans have always been born without a purpose, and they've done just fine. But there's nothing wrong with having a purpose, either."

"But what if this isn't a purpose? What if I'm just trying to _feel_ like I have one?"

"If something makes you feel like you have a purpose," Shou said, "then maybe you've found your purpose. Or maybe not. Maybe you're right, and you are just trying desperately to feel like you have a purpose but aren't actually finding one. But, well, here's a question for you: do you want to stop what you're currently doing?"

"Well... no," Liri said. "I saw something that's long been thought impossible, and I want to know how it could be done. I want to know what the things I found actually are."

"Then it doesn't matter if it becomes your purpose or not," Shou said. "Don't worry about finding a purpose. If you've found something you want to do, something that captures your interest as strongly as this seems to've, then do it. What's important is finding something that you find satisfying, whether it's truly a 'purpose' or not."

* * *

 _Born without a purpose. A laughable notion. It turns out that we're all held firmly in fate's grasp. Or_ were _, perhaps. Hopefully. Or maybe hopefully not. After all, we and our world have survived this long; can we be sure we would have without fate's grip on us? But then without fate, would any of the dangers we've faced have happened in the first place?_

 _Someone asked me about fate the other day, and what did I tell her? I lied. I said that nothing binds us to a specific course of action or outcome, that even if events are predisposed towards a specific outcome we can change this through our actions. You know, the kind of thing most people believe about fate. All bullshit, of course. Isn't true, never was. Fate was never a path, able to be followed or deviated from. It was a track, rigid and set. And maybe we've left the track now. Or maybe we haven't. Couldn't have. Because there's no way to escape it, but if not, then what_ was _done? S_ omething _was done; that much there's no doubt of. But if not escaping fate, then what?_

 _I wandered through the forest later that day, as I do most days. It's not like a town or village, though there are villages within it. But the forest itself, the population is spread all throughout. I know I'll never meet all of the forest youkai, but I've encountered more than enough to justify the time I spend there. That day, I came across a youkai at the abandoned lamprey stand; she had taken it over and was attempting to replicate Mystia's success. I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner, to be honest; it was fairly popular, and Mystia's... absence presents an opportunity for someone else to fill the gap she left._

 _I walked over to the stand. "I was wondering when someone would try to take Mystia's place."_

" _Yeah, she left a hole behind, didn't she? I'm trying to fill it, but... well, I can catch a lot of different animals, but I'm having trouble getting the hang of cooking them."_

" _I see." I looked her over; an avian youkai, certainly, but not a night sparrow like Mystia. Some sort of hawk youkai, I concluded._

" _Yeah, turns out Mystia just made it_ look _easy. Still, I'm determined to get it right." Then, "Wait, aren't you-"_

" _I am," I said. I wasn't surprised that she recognized me; I'm very well-known by now. Only the humans don't know who I am, and even they believe that they do. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that they know who I_ am _but not who I_ was _. "I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to aid you, though; I'm not much for cooking, either, and this is not something deserving of more direct intervention."_

" _Oh, I know," the youkai said. "There is something you can do for me, though. Not yet, but once I'm ready, once I can actually cook worth something, I'll need to get the word out. And what better way to do that then to make my food available as a major event?"_

" _You're talking about a festival."_

" _Yeah. Once I'm ready to go, I'd like to ask for such an opportunity."_

" _I see no reason we couldn't do that," I told her, "although only if what you make meets with our approval. We only want the best for such occasions, after all."_

" _But once you agree I'm good enough, you'll let me? Sounds fair. Thank you."_

" _Think nothing of it. If you become good enough to meet with our approval, you'll have earned it."_

" _You're giving me the chance, though. That's enough to be thankful for. I've been worried that even if I did get good enough, I'd never get enough attention to make this work, but I guess fate decided to cut me a break."_

 _Ah, yes, 'fate'. "I'm not sure fate had anything to do with it. Looks to me like it's just a little luck."_

" _Maybe there's no difference. I've often wondered about that, you know. What is fate, anyways?"_

 _And so I lied. I hid the truth. "I think of fate as a path. You can follow it, go where it leads you, or you can veer from it, forge your own path. It's easier to follow the path, but if you don't like where it leads you, leave it. It may take some effort, but you don't have to go where it leads."_

 _A lie, of course. But did I choose to lie, or did fate dictate that action? I cannot know, because I don't know if fate still exists._

* * *

The fairies' bickering stopped when the so-far-silent Star spoke up. "Um, girls? Something's coming."

"Riiiiight," Cirno said. "You're just trying to distract us so you can run, aren't you?"

"Or she's doing what she's here for," Daiyousei said.

"Come on, Dai, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one here. She's clearly trying to trick us."

"I'm not," Star said, "and there's something seriously wrong here. Whatever I'm sensing, it's not a person. It... I don't think it's natural at all."

Cirno just scoffed at this, but Wriggle and Mystia immediately looked over at each other. "Wriggle," Mystia said, "do you think it's..."

"I hope not, but..." Wriggle turned back towards the others. "Fine, Cirno, you can stay here if you want. Mystia and I'll go check it out."

"Okay, yeah," Cirno said, "that works. You look, and Dai and I'll keep an eye on these three."

"It's over that way," Star said, pointing to the far side of the clearing. "Be careful, you two. I'm serious; whatever's coming isn't normal."

"Right, Wriggle said. "Come on, Mystia."

Wriggle and Mystia headed over to the other side of the clearing, and within a few seconds, they saw exactly what they were afraid they would. There were three of the creatures, in the air and coming towards them. _And the four of us had enough trouble with just one,_ Mystia thought. _Even if the trio helps, I don't think we can take three._ So she called back to the fairies. "RUN!"

[BGM = /watch?v=btXMigHQfH4]

Cirno and Daiyousei turned at the sound of Mystia's voice, and as they did, Sunny, with Luna and Star behind her, made a break for the woods. She hadn't thought to use her power to conceal them, though, and Cirno caught sight of them out of the corner of her eye. "Hey!"

One of the creatures flew at Mystia, but Wriggle intercepted it, knocking it away with a diving kick. Another came in, slashing with a blade-like arm, but Mystia evaded and slashed through it, and then Wriggle knocked that one away, too, sending it flying into the third. "Come on," the firefly youkai said, "let's go!"

And then Daiyousei's voice. "Um, we have a problem!"

Mystia took a quick look back to see Cirno fighting Sunny, Luna, and Star. _Oh, shit._

One of the creatures came in, and Mystia shot up over it, launching a blast of energy at it. "Cirno, _RUN!_ "

"Why would I do that?" Cirno called back. "I'm the strongest! I'll never lose!"

"Not good," Mystia said. "Wriggle, we can't run yet! Not while they're fighting!"

Wriggle'd noticed the warring fairies, too. "Yeah, but if we focus on them, try to stop the fight, these things'll have an easy time with us!"

"Then we'll just have to hold the things off. Dai, get over here!"

One of the creatures came at Wriggle, but she dodged to the side and kicked it away. The other two came in together, and Wriggle sped away to the side, firing energy blasts at them. Mystia dashed up behind one and slashed through it, then backed off before it could retaliate. The third creature charged her, and she turned her attention to it.

Daiyousei blinked in in front of one of the two targeting Wriggle, blasted it in the face, then teleported away. Wriggle took advantage of this to move in and knock it into the ground with a diving kick, evading the other one as she did so.

"Nice, Dai," Mystia said as she fired a barrage at the creature attacking her, "but I didn't call you over here to help us. I didn't want Cirno to hear me say this, because I need you to kill her."

"Wait," Dai said, "what?! Why do you want-"

"Because she won't run. Even if she beats the trio, she'll just attack these things next, and we all know she won't win. Even all of us together won't win."

"Why not just let her?"

Mystia evaded an attack and cut into the creature before backing off again. "We saw dead fairies in the woods. Really dead; the bodies were just lying there. We think these things can kill fairies for real."

"That's impossible," Daiyousei said. "We don't die; we always come back. Nothing can-"

"Don't question!" Wriggle said as she weaved through the attacks of the creatures after her. "Just do it!"

Mystia flew over and around her attacker while firing at it. "If you do it, she'll resurrect later like normal. So get in there and do it; I don't know how much longer we can hold these things off for."

"...All right," Dai said, and flew back towards Cirno. "I'll take her out as quickly as I can."

Wriggle flew away from the creatures' next attack, hitting them with energy blasts. "Right, then. Good plan. Now we've just gotta stay alive long enough for it to work."

Sunny, Luna, and Star attacked Cirno with a well-coordinated barrage of shots. Cirno focused her power into a small blast of intense cold in front of her. The blast froze the bullets within its small area, and the cold spread through them to other nearby bullets, creating a chain reaction in the couple seconds the chill lasted before the frozen bullets all shattered, leaving a wide opening in the oncoming barrage. Sunny's fireball shots were resistant to the effect and thus remained unfrozen, but with the other shots cleared, Cirno easily dodged them while returning fire, sending a spray of icicle shots at Sunny.

Luna flew above Cirno in an arc, firing a continuous spray of shots. As the curtain of bullets approached, Cirno hit it with another freeze blast. But Star had followed just behind Luna, firing lasers in the same arc. The lasers broke paths through the frozen shots, blasting a spray of shards at Cirno. Cirno managed to evade the worst of it, though she did sustain a few cuts. "Hey! Not fair!"

Daiyousei blinked in in front of Sunny and opened fire, forcing the sun fairy to evade. Sunny returned fire, but Dai had already teleported away, blinking in behind Sunny and continuing the attack. "Cirno, let's go! We can't fight both these three and those three creatures! Hell, we can't even take the three creatures! We could barely handle one!"

"You can run if you want," Cirno said. "I won't run, and I won't lose!"

 _Dammit, Cirno,_ Daiyousei thought, _this is_ not _a good time for your 'strongest' thing. Right, I'll have to do this Mystia's way._ She flew into battle against the fairy trio alongside Cirno. _If I help Cirno, I can catch her off-guard and get this done far sooner and easier than if I attack openly. Just gotta wait for my chance, because I'll probably only get one._

Two of the creatures attacked Wriggle from opposite sides, but Mystia slammed into one of them, knocking it away and making it easier for Wriggle to evade. The third one came in after her, but Wriggle, the second one still coming at her, flipped over it and kicked it into the second one.

A creature moved in and attacked. Wriggle dodged and fired on it. Mystia slashed into it from behind as she flew past while evading the other two. Sunny sent more fireball shots at Cirno, in conjunction with bullets from Luna and lasers from Star. Daiyousei attacked Star from behind, disrupting the pattern and giving Cirno and opening to evade and fire ice blasts as the trio. A strike, an evasion with return fire, a strike, a dodge and counter, more shots, evasion of simultaneous attacks, one enemy knocked into another, freeze blast, attack, dodge, coordinated fire, charge and attack, retreat and fire, Cirno not backing down against the trio while Daiyousei waited for her chance and Wriggle and Mystia doing everything they could to keep the creatures at bay.

But they couldn't do enough.

Wriggle messed up a dodge, not noticing another creature coming in from behind. Her evasion took her directly into the second creature's path, and though she tried to correct for her mistake, it wasn't enough, and the creature's slash cut a deep gash into her side. Mystia tried to move in to help, but the third creature was in her way, and getting around it took a few seconds, long enough for the first creature to move in and connect with a slash of its own, cutting through Wriggle's leg. Mystia dove in, knocking that one away, but the other one slashed with its bladed arm right through Wriggle's neck, not deep enough to sever it but more than deep enough that it was a fatal blow.

[End BGM]

There was nothing Mystia could do as the creature landed its fatal strike. " _WRIGGLE!_ "

Mystia's anguished scream got the attention of Cirno and the trio, who all glanced in her direction. Daiyousei, however, was too focused on her task to notice, and she saw her chance and took it, diving into the momentarily-distracted Cirno from above and carrying her down, crushing her head against a rock. Cirno's body vanished, as was supposed to happen when a fairy died, and Dai called out to the trio. "Run!" Then she looked back, and she saw Wriggle's body fall. And then she ran.

Mystia pushed through her shock, pulling back as all three creatures turned to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed all four fairies fleeing into the forest, and knowing she couldn't hope to survive, she turned and ran herself. But the creatures pursued, and these ones were fast enough that she couldn't shake them.

The course of Mystia's desperate flight eventually took her to the lake. Even in her current panic, she realized that if she could make it across the lake, to the mansion on the other side, she might find aid. But instead, as she approached the lake, she heard a voice call out. "Get them over the water!"

Mystia's course did take her over the lake, but the creatures didn't follow. They stopped just on the shore, as though they were unwilling to pass over the water. "They've learned," the voice said. "Oh, well. They're close enough. Hey, move higher a bit!"

The water suddenly gathered into a massive wave. Mystia rose over the wave, which crashed into the shore at unnatural speed, engulfing the creatures and somehow pulling them back into the lake. And then, as Mystia watched, the creatures, still visible just below the water's surface, were ripped into pieces by some unseen force.

"There we go. Are you all right?"

Mystia looked in the direction of the voice, and saw a woman's form breaking the surface. And... _Is that a mermaid? Well, I guess Dai has said the lake has them._ "Um, I... I..."

"Well," the woman said, "you look okay."

"I... um, yeah, they didn't hurt me, but... well, um, thank you. I..."

"You're welcome. I've been taking out as many of those things as I can. I may be weak out of the water, but within it my power is absolute. Unfortunately, it looks like they've learned not to come into the water, and eventually they'll probably also learn not to get close enough that I can pull them in."

"Okay. Um... who are you?"

"I am the aquatic princess, Wakisagihime. What about you?"

"Um, Mystia. Mystia Lorelei. Um... look, thank you for saving me, but I have to go." And with that, Mystia flew off, away from the lake and back into the woods. She soon came upon the clearing, now deserted except for the unmoving form of Wriggle Nightbug.

* * *

[BGM = /watch?v=d8m1nRzsOJM]

Nitori wandered slowly through the village, almost completely unaware of her surroundings. She was heading towards her shop, but she wasn't really aware of this; her thoughts were entirely on Liora.

' _You're... the 'smart one'.. right?_ '

Liora's last words, parroting back what Nitori'd said to her multiple times. Why? Why was that at the front of her mind? Why was that so important as to be her last words? She'd said it before Nitori left her, too. Clearly she was focused on them, but why? Nitori _was_ the smart one; surely Liara'd been aware of that, hadn't she? _Wait. What if..._ what if that was why? What if she _did_ know, and it made her feel inferior? _No, that would be stupid. I'm better in general, but she's better –_ was _better – at her specialty. Why would she feel inferior?_ Although emotions weren't always logical, were they?

But why was she still thinking about it in the middle of battle?

Why?

 _Why?_

Why was Liora still thinking about that in battle? Why was she – _wait, is_ that _why?_ Did she choose to fight on her own _because_ she'd felt inferior? What if... if Liora'd chosen to fight because of those feelings? And if she had, then...

 _Did I drive her to this?_

Nitori kept moving slowly through the village, her thoughts occupied by Liora's death.

And Nitori wasn't the only one having thoughts about Liora's death. Mystia, standing over the dead body of Wriggle Nightbug, found her mind similarly occupied.

It was worse for Mystia than it was for Nitori. True, Mystia didn't have the thought that she was to blame for Wriggle's death – if anyone besides the creatures was, it was Cirno for her refusal to flee – but she'd _been_ there. She'd _seen_ Wriggle die.

And there hadn't been a thing she could do about it.

Mystia knew she couldn't have done anything to save Wriggle. She didn't blame herself for that; she'd done everything she could. Only chance had kept them both from death. _That_ was the problem. She couldn't feel safe, because she _wasn't_ safe. None of them were. She, Wriggle, Cirno, and Dai together had barely managed one of those creatures. Now, with just three of them, they'd lose against even just one. And if they weren't all together, they'd have even less chance.

They were all going to die, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Oh, sure, they could hide out somewhere; they could live at the lake and trust Wakisagihime to protect them, or find a village and hope for safety in numbers, or something, but would that really work? No protection was perfect; what if too many showed up for a village as a whole to handle, or they got separated from the others in the village? Or if they were attacked at the lake, what if Wakisagihime couldn't handle enough of them, or was busy with one group when another showed up, or simply didn't notice in time? No, finding aid could help for a time, but in the end, it was only a delaying measure. The only way Mystia could guarantee her safety was if she was strong enough to protect herself. But she wasn't. And she knew she never would be; she was too weak. She simply didn't have the power it would take. So she would have to find another course of action, and there was only one she could think of.

Mystia picked up Wriggle's body and rose into the air, heading towards her stand for what she knew would be the last time.

[End BGM]

* * *

The youkai once known as Rumia landed in front of the next entrance. This was the third location, the third seal.

Accessing the first two seals, and doing what she'd needed to do, had been easy. For the first one, she'd found the distortion hiding its location and removed it, exposing the cave leading to the seal. She'd dispatched the guardian, solved the puzzle to open the way forward (she could have pushed through with brute force, but she didn't want to risk any spillover to the seal beyond), and made her way to the seal chamber. Then she'd tapped into the energies of the chamber, altering them as she required. The second chamber had been even easier, as its location had already emerged from its distortion and the guardian had been defeated by someone else.

Now, as she landed in front of the third location, she could tell something was different here. The energy was different. Not in a way that would impact her task, fortunately, but still worth noting. Someone else had been here, had done something here, and as she landed, that someone emerged from the cave. A dark figure, dressed in black and deep purple. As the figure emerged and caught sight of the ex-Rumia, she held out her arm and a sword, emerging from shadow, appeared in it. "Who are you?"

"Immediate aggression," ex-Rumia said. "So hostile. Who are you, so expectant of opposition?"

"Do you claim not to intend opposition?"

"I do not know your purpose here, although given what I can feel of the energies within, I think I can guess. But my purpose here is not interfered with by what you've done."

"No."

"No?"

"No," the mysterious woman said. "I know exactly why you're here, but you're too late. I have finished here. Soon, I will be finished elsewhere as well, and then there will be nothing you can do. Not that you will live to see this, of course. But first, I ask again: who are you, that would come to the seals?"

"It's been a very long time," ex-Rumia said, "since I had a name. I suppose I shall return to my old one, so you may call me Luna."

"Luna. And why are you here?"

"Because I need to be," Luna said. "I don't intend to explain myself to you. I have a purpose at the seal; that is all that matters. Besides, you mean to attack regardless of my reason, don't you? But before we fight, I've given you my name, so how about you tell me yours?"

"I have none. If you must call me something, then call me Herald. It matters not; I will not allow anyone to reach the seals."

"Herald." Luna held out her hand, and her own sword appeared in it. "Very well, then, Herald. I have things to do, so if you mean to do battle with me, then let us get to it."

* * *

[BGM = /watch?v=NGNa6g7mpNM&list=PL8DDD2D047A076DC8&index=14]

Usually, Mystia would open her stand as night fell, but tonight was different.

Customers came, of course; they couldn't know she was keeping the stand closed tonight. No humans, of course; she had few of those even in the best of times, and this wasn't the best of times. Several youkai showed up, though. Some left when they saw the sign indicating the stand was closed, but others didn't. Others didn't turn away, wondering why, if the stand was closed, she was there and preparing food. But then they saw Wriggle's body and they understood.

Eventually, Cirno and Daiyousei showed up. Mystia didn't really want to see them right now, or at least not Cirno, but they'd been Wriggle's friends, too. She couldn't turn them away. They deserved one last chance to say goodbye, even if she knew they wouldn't actually be joining her.

"Hey, Mystia," Daiyousei said softly as she and Cirno sat down. "I'm glad to see you're safe."

"Yeah," Mystia said. "'Safe'. Sure. Because there's totally not going to be any more of those things."

"Hey," Cirno said, "I told you to just let me-"

Daiyousei gave Cirno a slap in the face. "I told you not to say that!" Then, to Mystia, "I'm sorry about her. I tried to tell her to stay quiet, not say things like that, but, well..."

"She's Cirno," Mystia said. "I know. It's not your fault if she says something stupid."

Daiyousei ignored Cirno's objecting 'hey!' "Yeah, but still. I know how hard this is, and she shouldn't be making it harder. But I couldn't just not bring her. She was Wriggle's friend, too. She deserves a chance to say goodbye."

"You keep saying that," Cirno said. "Why do you think we won't see her any-"

Daiyousei slapped her again. "Cirno, shes _dead_. You know youkai don't come back like we do."

"And she died protecting you," Mystia said.

"Well, that's just dumb," Cirno said. "I'm the strongest! I didn't need-"

This time it wasn't a slap from Daiyousei; it was a frying pan, thrown by Mystia right into Cirno's face. "Shut up! Just shut up! She died because _you_ are too damn _stupid_ to run when you should! If you'd just gotten the hell out of there when we said to, she'd still be alive! This is _your_ fault, Cirno! So say your goddamn goodbyes and then get the _fuck_ out of here!"

Silence for a moment, then Cirno got to her feet. "What the hell, Mys? What-"

"Just shut up! Okay? Just shut the hell up!"

Another pause, then, "Fine," Cirno said. "You want to be that way, I'll just leave."

And she did.

There was another silence as Mystia composed herself, and then Daiyousei spoke. "I'm really sorry about that. I-"

"It wasn't your fault," Mystia said, her voice soft and flat. "Dai, do me a favor, would you? Get her and go to one of the villages, somewhere you two can find safety in numbers. Or back to the lake, where the mermaid girl can protect you. Go to one of those places and stay there. You won't be safe, but you'll be saf _er_. I don't want to lose you, too, you or Cirno. It may be her fault that Wriggle's dead, but she didn't want it to happen; she was just being stupid. I... don't want her to die for that."

"I'm sorry, Mystia," Daiyousei said, "but... I don't think she'll abandon the search for Rumia. I can't, either. She's our friend, too, and with those _things_ around, we can't let her be on her own."

"You don't get it, do you? She's dead, Mystia. If it hasn't happened yet, it'll happen soon. And finding her won't help. Even together, we don't stand a chance against those things. She's dead, you're dead, we're all dead. Please, Dai. Find Cirno and get somewhere safer. Stay alive long enough."

"...Long enough for what?"

"Long enough for me to return."

"...What? You're... going somewhere?"

Mystia nodded. "Please, Dai. Stay alive, and keep Cirno alive. All right?"

Silence for a moment, and then, "...All right. I'll do as much as I can."

"Thank you. Now go find her before she gets herself into more trouble."

"All right." Dai got to her feet to leave, then turned back towards Mystia. "Hey, Mystia? I... well, no, I don't understand what you're going through. I can't. I'm trying, but... I mean, I know Wriggle's not coming back, but... it's like some part of me refuses to believe this."

"Death is different for fairies. I understand that."

"Yeah. But... well, I just want to say that... that I'm sorry Wriggle's gone. She was a friend, and even if I still can't convince myself she's not coming back, it'll sink in eventually, and I'm sure I'll be just as sad as you are. Heck, I'm pretty sad even now. Just... well, just know that you're not the only one who's going to miss her."

"I know, Dai," Mystia said. "Thank you. And... goodbye, for now. If you survive, I'll see you again, but until then, goodbye."

"Goodbye," Daiyousei said, and then she flew away.

Mystia watched Dai go, then turned back to the meal she was preparing. Before long, it was finished, and she sat down with it in front of her.

Mystia turned to look at what was left of Wriggle, then back to her meal. She grabbed a piece of meat, then looked over at Wriggle again. "I take you within myself," she said softly, "so that a part of you will remain with me for as long as I live." Then she ate it. Then she picked up the next piece and ate that. And the next, and the next, and so on until she was finished.

Mystia got up and went over to Wriggle's body, what was left of it. She took it, carried it out into the woods, and set it down, leaving it for others. She'd had her fill, but there was much left, and letting any of Wriggle's body go to waste would be an insult to her memory. So she left the body, knowing that others, whether youkai or animal, would consume what remained.

[End BGM]

Mystia returned to her stand and just sat there for a while, thinking about Wriggle, remembering her. How long, exactly, she wasn't sure, but a long time.

Then she stood again, and gathered her belongings, any she cared to keep.

Then she left the stand behind, flying away from the woods she called home.

She flew to the lake and over it, past the mansion, the sun rising as she reached the mountain beyond.

She made her way up the mountain.

She reached the top of the mountain, and the shrine that was her destination.

She landed outside the shrine and entered its grounds on foot, seeing no others present at the moment.

She approached the altar and knelt in front of it, and as soon as she did, she heard a voice. "Well, well. A youkai of the forest, are you not? Unusual for one such as you to come all the way here."

"You are the god of this shrine?" Mystia said. "The sky god Kanako Yasaka?"

The goddess' form appeared before her, hovering above the altar. "I am. And what, I ask, brings you here? I sense a desire, a strong one. You have come here to ask something of me."

"I... I have. I brought everything I have. I'll give you whatever you demand in return."

"Smart of you. You know that, as you are not of my faithful, even the least of aid will come with a price."

"I'll give you anything."

"I see. Well, first, I must question you thus: what would you ask of me? What divine boon would you have Kanako Yasaka bestow upon you?"

"Power," Mystia said. "I... I need power. I'm too weak. I can't even keep myself alive, much less anyone I care about. I need power. Please, Goddess of the Mountain, please grant me strength!"

Kanako was silent for a moment. "Hmm... so power is what you desire? Yes, I can grant you power. But there is only one price for this, only one payment equal to what you ask. If you want power, the price is service. Serve me, and I shall give you what you desire. Do you accept?"

Mystia didn't hesitate.

"I do."

* * *

 **Yeah.**

 **Things happened.**

 **I'll be honest: this was a fairly challenging chapter to write. Not only was there a fair amount of combat, which I still find hard (although I'm definitely better at it than I used to be), but there was also a lot of emotionally-focused stuff in the later scenes, and I'm definitely not very good at that. I think it came out all right, though.**

 **Now, let's start with the big one. I'm pretty sure some of you are not happy about what happened in this chapter, but then, the deaths of major characters do tend to have that effect. I'm expecting more flak for Wriggle's death than Liora's, since Liora was an OC, but I do hope you at least found her to be a decent-enough character. And if either did piss you off, well, know that this isn't the last time characters are going to die. Gensokyo's experiencing dangerous times here, and not everyone's going to make it through alive. Don't worry, though; I'm going going to kill characters off arbitrarily. Don't think you're going to start seeing redshirts; I don't go in for that sort of thing. I don't kill characters just for emphasis; there's always something to it.**

 **Of course, the deaths weren't all that happened in this chapter. In particular, we met a few more kappa, staff at the underground plant, and Hikari's having them do everything they can to figure out just what the hell happened. She's even going to find an expert, and I'm sure most of you already know who that 'expert' is.**

 **We also had the narrator rambling on a bit. She's come to remind me very much of Johnny Truant from _House of Leaves_. I didn't intend this similarity, but it's definitely there, and it definitely fits, so I have no intention of changing anything. Incidentally, some of you may have noticed what seems to be an error in her narration, a contradiction in the order of events. I put that 'error' there deliberately, so no, it's not a mistake on my part. The narrator's, well, not entirely of sound mind, as you may have noticed. That's also why her bit ends as abruptly as it does; I realize it may seem jarring the way it suddenly ends, but it's supposed to.**

 **And now we come to the last scene. You probably figured it out, and yes, Mystia's meal did indeed come from Wriggle. I realize this may be somewhat unsettling for some of you, but I hope it didn't come across that way. It was just her way of sending off her friend. I've found that even fantasy generally sticks to comfortable and familiar ground where dead people are concerned. Yes, funerals or other such things are sometimes different than what we generally do today, but not _that_ different. Maybe instead of burying or burning a body, the body is set to drift out into the sea, or something like that. But given how different youkai are from humans, I figured their customs for such things would also be different, and as I was thinking about what those customs might be, the idea really just came to me. Maybe it creeped you out, or you found it disturbing in whatever way, but I hope not. It was supposed to be touching in its way, and I really hope I succeeded in that.**

 **Well, that's all I have to say about this chapter. I'd really like to hear what you thought, so I really hope you leave reviews. I'd also like to know what you think of the music I use; I put a lot of thought into which tracks I choose, and I'd like to hear what you think of my choices. But any feedback is welcome and encouraged, so do please let me know what you think about this chapter, and I hope to see you in the next one.**


	7. Announcement

**This is an announcement that I am putting this fic on indefinite hiatus.**

 **Now, why am I putting it on hiatus? Well, the reason is because I don't feel it's had the quality I want it to. I've noticed a definite lack of interest compared to my previous stories, and I think it's because I haven't done a very good job with it so far. Rest assured, however, that I _will_ continue it; the story I have planned is far too good not to write. I just want to make sure that all of it, what's yet to come and what's already been written, is as good as it should be. To that end, during the hiatus I will be doing a significant revision/rewrite of the existing chapters, so you can look forward to an improved version when it does come back.**

 **I'm sorry to disappoint those of you who've been enjoying this fic so far, but I feel this is the best course of action right now. And, again, I _will_ continue it eventually, and when I do, I hope to see you all there.**


End file.
